May 2004 Archives

Today was a day: kind of a bad day and kind of a sad day. It was the seniors' last day of school. It was also the speech banquet. And I also have to finish my editorial for english (software patents in the EU... a very bad idea for an editorial), my powerpoint presentation for physics, and my US History speech (which I learned today is on the 1920s), all of which are due tomorrow. And I really only got home at about 9:45 PM because I had a trumpet lesson right before the banquet. The banquet was fun. All of the important people from the team were there, plus Stoneman and Alex Rodriguez. Emily and Clara gave out funny little awards and THE Sosne Award (awarded to Sierra Tittle). I apparently have "the most potential" for next year. Kadish got the award for being the "biggest vegetarian." Leeor was awarded the honor of being the "most deliquent" person on the team. Dan actually got two awards. The first was for being part of the most bipolar team. He and Catherine are truly polar opposites. He also got the award for being "most likely to offend someone in a conversation without realizing it." Kadish really was more deserving of that, but I suppose he intends to offend people, so that might change it.

Anyway, I'm sad that the seniors, especially Dan, are leaving. Actually, I'm more jealous, because they get to got to college and I'm stuck in high school for two more years. But I'll miss Dan the most because he's the kind of person who will actually casually talk about multivariable calculus, chemistry, Huxley, or Dostoevsky. Just the other day during technical difficulties in physics he was showing me how to find the derivative of a multivariable function. Aside from the fact that it's pretty dang cool, he will actually talk engagingly about those things which no one seems to care about because it's too "insufferably nerdy," or "academic."

But this really sucks because I'm staying home to do all of this worthless homework. I could be out seeing a 10 o'clock showing of "Shrek 2" with Leeor, Kadish, Dan, and Stoneman.

I'm doing this powerpoint presentation on dark matter for physics, and I just finally understood where the mass discrepancy occurs. It's not a discrepancy between Newtonian gravitational estimates for galactic mass and luminosity estimates. Rather is comes from the fact that one needs a dust based distribution of matter going out much further than the luminous boundary of the galaxy to account for the orbital velocity of Magellenic Clusters that orbit the Milky Way. Oh god, it's so cool! (ha, ha, pun not intended). Assuming that I can put in some pictures, Mrs. Feller is going to die with love when she sees this presentation. She really likes having lots of stupid graphically appealing stuff, eye candy, that is. That's what I struggle a bit with: making it pretty, making the text and images have the right size and location, etc. Nevertheless, she has a secret infatuation with making so-called "connections." She loved it when someone made the distant connection of antimatter as a possible energy source, and she loves all of the analogies. So I have a whole list of analogies, including the holy grail of all analogies: the man at the cattle auction trying to figure out the weight of the cow before the auctioneer has arrived (an analogy for the various ways in which one can measure the mass of the universe--it has both accuracy and humor). But it gets better. I use equations for luminosity, doppler redshift, newtonian gravitation, and the hubble velocity-distance proportionality, as well as a comparison the dynamics of a dust filled system as opposed to a system filled with a small number of massive bodies, all in order to describe the necessity for dark matter. If I don't drive her insane with the low level math, then she'll go nuts over my application of these various principles to the given problem.

Only about half of school is about being smart. The other half is about figuring out exactly what a teacher wants and likes. And most of the part about being smart is about being smart enough to give the teacher exactly what they want. In other words, it's like working the social services system in order to live well without doing anything. If you at least know how to do it, your life will never be too bad no matter what your economic situation may seem. Okay, that is a bad analogy, but you get the point. So let me finish this off with a quote by my dear friend (a teacher, nonetheless) Bill Wilson:

"The more you know, the more you know how little you know."

We were having this lovely discussion in English on this play that we're reading. It's central conflict is literally creationism vs. evolution, but it's really more about free thought, social commentary on McCarthyism, and progressivism vs. traditionalism. Anyway, we started to talk about teaching evolution and creationism in schools, and the fact came to light that 44% of adults in America believe in creationism as literally stated in the Bible! Only about 10% (or thereabouts) believe in god-less evolution, and the rest either aren't sure, or believe in evolution guided by god. So people started talking in this very happy, feel-good way about how evolution doesn't really contradict Christian beliefs assuming that you don't have a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. This I can agree with, but then people started to taking it to the level that both evolution and creationism should both be taught in biology classes. What utter absurdity! There are so many things wrong with this!

First, creationism is not actually science. Science is the study of creating generalizations from empirical data in order to develop an explanation of the physical world. Creationism doesn't fit into any of these categories, nor is it possible for it to do so. It's not science, so it shouldn't be taught in science. Furthermore, teaching it in as part of a science curriculum gives students the false impression that it has scientific merit, of which it has none. I'm not saying you can disprove it, it's just that it has no part in the realms of scientific education. It could, probably should, and generally is taught as part of comparative religion studies in world history classes. Teaching it in science classes along side evolution also implies that it is more valid than the plethora of other religious creation beliefs. This is called endorsement. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor ruled in Lynch v. Donnelly (1984): "Endorsement sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community." It is not, however, endorsement to teach creationism in a social studies environment. This is because the study of things in social studies is generally determined by their importance, or in this case, significance to the world. In other words, in this kind of comparative religion study, one would learn about the most major world religions because of their historical and cultural importance. More importantly though, the social studies are generally not concerned with the truth of physical reality, but rather the impact of things on humanity. The study of religions in social studies never actually concerns itself with whether one religion is right or wrong, it just compares and assesses the beliefs of each and its impact of history, society, and culture. That is not by definition, endorsement.

Chris Blake then tried to tell me that not teaching creationism in biology classes would be "biased," even if evolution was presented as being the theory that it is. But then, isn't is "biased" to deny the existence of UFOs in physics classes? If science can't rule out of its realm of study pure metaphysics, mysticism, and things that can't be proven or disproven, then there can be no science. Thus, teaching creationism or any other religious beliefs in science classes is one of the stupidest ideas I've heard in a long time.

I got up at 6 AM this morning so I could walk a mile to take the bus downtown (the buses by my house don't run that early on Saturdays) and do some community service. I met Alexis, Clara, Sophie, Jessica, Ben, and Natalie under the freeway by the Esplanade to hand out sandwiches at the American Heart Association Walk. It was fun, freezing cold, and somehow took 4 hours, but I need the community service anyway. Plus, we got some free food, and I got a ride home, so I was happy. Alexis needs to learn how to speak more clearly on the telephone, because I couldn't understand the last four digits of her telephone number from the message she left. Hurah for student government communication, and hurah for the internet because it let me find the location of the walk.

I'm thinking about getting a separate domain for Adams Blog, so which do you like better:

www.adamsblog.net
www.adamsblog.org

Or does something else pique your fancy?

I just got back from assisting Leeor Schweitzer, the lighting GENIUS, with the lights for the spring talent show. Overall, the acts were done well, although the hosting was kind of lame. There was, however, one thing that really bothered me. In most of the acts involving self-written music (excluding Sophie's and Eran Schweitzer's), the underlying chord structures were remarkably bland. When I think of writing music, it seems to me that the chords should move the song. In other words, there should be variety in the chords, they should change with some rapidity (this varies widely depending on the desired effect), and their progression and flow should be the force that takes the song somewhere. Instead, there were a lot of boring and highly repetitive progressions that were more static than moving. I've never made a serious attempt at writing music, so I can't say that I could do any better. I have thought about writing songs and how to go about doing it though. To me, it seems like it would be most natural to build from the chords up, first establishing a root motion, and then building the melody or surface of the song. Actually, what I'd really like to do is to start by writing some simple jazz tunes of the bebop-esque blues and rhythm changes progressions (with lots of chord substitutions: yea for ii-V's!). Then, my final goal is to collaborate with Colin and try to write some simple trumpet concerto or something. That would be fun.

I met my mentor for my cold fusion research today. It's going to be so cool. I have yet to meet the other student who's doing it with me. I've got to stop by the lab one of these days. It's in the basement of Science Building 1 at PSU, and the mentor is professor emeritus of physics. Great things in cold fusion always occur in basements... on cement floors... like the alleged melting of a 4 inch hole in the floor of a lab at the University of Utah. The university never investigated the incident. Nor did they pay much attention to the fact that extremely dangerous quantities of gamma radiation may have been released by the broken electrolysis apparatus. I'm going to stop now.

Before I begin this assault on the work of my teacher, I would like to accept that this blog is ridden with grammatical errors. I don't proofread entries. Doing so goes against the fundamental essence of blog. The essence of blog is to transmit the "stream of consciousness" from cranium to intelligible bits on a computer with minimal interference. The fact that we have to use language as a medium for this transmission is truly unfortunate--my thoughts would be much better understood if one could "be" my mind for a brief period of time. Nevertheless, language is a necessary evil in this context. In my real work that I turn in for school, I average about 1 grammatical mistake per 4 pages, assuming I do an average level of proofreading and revision. Or at least, that's what my teachers catch.

Moving on to the point.

I've become very frustrated with the general level of stupidity of some of my teachers. It varies from teacher to teacher. With Mr. Wilson, I just argue with him, yell at him, and occasionally call him an idiot. We have a very friendly (seriously, I talk to him at lunch for fun sometimes) relationship of mutual respect. With Ms. McFarlane, I just make every attempt to damage her self esteem by pointing out her numerous mistakes (In our period, it averages about 1 mistake per 2-3 problems. In 1st period, it's more like 1 per problem.), and I offer to perform every problem on the board for extra credit. And then there's Mrs. Feller. She's much worse than Mr. Wilson (at least he actually worked in an industrial lab for a few years), but doesn't have the same sense of humor, so mutual insults tend to have a negative effect. She doesn't make the same grotesque number of blatant calculation and algebraic errors as McFarlane, so slowly and methodically wearing down her confidence doesn't work either. She mystifies me. So for your entertainment and my brainstorming, here are a few quotations from a review sheet that she handed out. All errors are reproduced in earnest:

"Figure 14-1 shows a pulse traveling at a spe3ed of 1.0 m/s...

"A water wave with a wavelength of 7.0 cm and sped of 21 cm/s..."

She never taught the equation for the Doppler Effect, so she decided to throw it into the test review so we could do the problems requiring it. This led to my personal favorite:
"The equation for the Doppler shift of a wave of speed v reaching a motion detector is
f_d = f_s((v + v_d)/(v_s - v_s))
where v_d is the speed of the detector, v_s is the speed of the source, f_s is the frequency of the source, and f_d is the frequency of the detector."
Wow. The Doppler Effect is apparently against the laws of our "Fellerian" physics. Doesn't "Feller" sound suspiciously like "false?" By some stroke of rare luck I think I managed to derive the equation for the Doppler Effect, or at least make it work mathematically by applying conceptualizations from 7th grade. No thanks to her. Remember, this woman went to Brown. Apparently one's acceptance into the Ivy League has little real correlation with intelligence. It's long been my suspicion. My other suspicion was that geophysics majors are the people who couldn't make it as regular physics majors. She majored in geophysics. Maybe I'm going bit extreme...

"While fishing off a boat anchored offshore, you note that the distance between successive wave crests is about 12 m and their seed is 7.5 m/s
a. What is thee frequency of the waves?"

Boo hoo! Now I'm sad. These typos were taken from the first two pages of the review and pages 3-5 don't seem to have any blatant typos as I skim them. Oh well. There's some lighthearted fare for the evening. Tomorrow, I must show this to Zaraza, the teacher who actually has a Ph.D in physics.

Okay, so maybe the title's not so accurate now that Winamp won't stop crashing. So I reinstalled it, and I'm having to add my music files all over again. Fiendishness! It must be because I upgraded from 5.0 to 5.03. That's supposed to make things more stable. But then again, it's a piece of software, therefore the only accurate psychology is reverse psychology. It now appears that all of my playlists have vanished...

Anyway, I was reading an essay this morning on the bus on the comparison of the treatment of the sexual instinct in 1984 and Brave New World as a means of totalitarian control. The topic is interesting because the two treatments are totally opposite and yet the effect of totalitarian control is the same. But here's how the difference is reconcilable. Let me first examine Brave New World. Sex is encouraged by the State to disturbing degrees. It has the function of distracting people from the reality of their pitiful lives. The substance of the society is that temporary pleasure (i.e. soma, etc.) is used to make people ambivalent by consuming their energy and time. Its totalitarianism is derived from making the people passive. Contrapuntally, totalitarianism in 1984 derives it's power from the suppression of people's energy, thus channelling it into vehement hatred and fear. People then submit (even, actively support perhaps) to the totalitarianism because of their fear and hatred. Thus the two extremes are highly effective for the control of the individual.

The afternoon I was reading an article in National Geographic on the "The End of Cheap Oil." It awakened a number of sentimates in me which in reality have little to do with oil, but they are still interesting. Take the case of China. It's obvious that China will inevitably supplant the US as the world's foremost economic power. But consider China some more. Think of the labor. According to the CIA World Factbook the population of China was recently estimated at 1,286,975,468. As if this was not enough labor, consider the fact that as of now 50% of the labor force is occupied in agriculture. Much of their agriculture is not mechanized yet either. And consider how economically powerful they are now. Dear godlessness! With the discovery of democracy, human/civil rights, and a dose of market liberalization, China will be unstoppable for about the next 5 centuries, assuming they don't go to nuclear war with India, and can work out some economic cooperation with them too. Furthermore, the labor force has phenomenal motivation. Not only does East Asia have a culture of enormous work ethic, but the society is at the stage where it's almost on the cusp of prosperity. Thus the society is nearly entirely free of the kind of post-industrial decadence that is getting to W. Europe and America. With their culture and stage of motivation, people have an incredible value for education. Once they make their leap into the age of relative prosperity; democracy, human rights, and market liberalization will inevitably come about, bringing further prosperity. Don't forget that China doesn't have the kind of weird religious baggage (lumbering orthodoxies and social systems centering around things that aren't in normal reality, like God, the afterlife, etc.) that has plagued the rest of the world. Most Chinese are either Taoist/Daoist, Buddhist, or atheist. Taoism/Daoism and Buddhism are hardly religions but more like ways of life. Nietzsche called them "atheist religions" because they merely prescribe a philosophy on life that is nonorthodox, atheist, and generally seeks to minimize suffering and achieve internal harmony. They center around the individual instead of some other thing that no one is quite sure about, but you will get burned at the stake for questioning. The benefits of this kind of philosophy for a society are innumerable. It leads to an immediate acceptance of rational/empirical/scientific beliefs without layers of garbled resistance from archaic factions of society. And a society with such beliefs retains all morality unlike the bitter antiscientists (in other words, Ian Rocker, bitter at all scientific thought) like to think. In other words, people tend to act more logically when they believe in a fully logical philosophy. Or something like that. But that's why America's toast and China is going to rule the world someday soon. There's no hope... unless...

AHA! We should nuke 'em now! And then Texas should secede from the Union AFTER that happens, as they have the full right to do. That way they can pretend to have the moral high ground, George W. Bush can relocate all of the nuclear missile silos there, and then have time to be run for the presidency of Texas so he no longer has to remain in the American political system. Maybe not, but it's a thought... A thought that my favorite person--Barry Goldwater--would be proud of. Goldwater tried to win an election by advocating possible use of nuclear weapons in 1964. Now that's called smart politics. Oooh! And that reminds me of George C. Wallace. The defining moment of HIS career was in the climax of his speech "I say segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!" If you can obtain an audio file of the speech you really should. The way he literally snarls it is perfectly fitting of all segregationist stereotypes. If it weren't so disturbing, it'd be funny.

I'll leave you on that note. Today was the 50th anniversary of Brown v. The Board of Education. What's ironic is that the ruling was, although very correct and admirable in hindsight, a bit of an abuse of judicial power. Considering how horrible of a ruling Plessy v. Ferguson was, it has a bit more precedent. And don't forget US v. Cruikshank and US v. Reese which not only nullified the 14th and 15th amendments for African Americans (somehow this is supposed to be upholding the constitution?), but also seemed to forget the notion that the US Constitution is the "supreme law of the land." Don't they teach you that in 3rd grade? But wait! they had different compulsory education laws in the 1870s. But wait again! wouldn't we expect our Supreme Court justices to make it past the 3rd grade? Hmm... Oh well, Brown was a 9-0 decision, so who cares? And think of where we'd be if it hadn't happened. The NAACP put together such an amazing case that they really deserved to win it just because of that though.

The Multnomah County Library is sooo cool! If you suggest a book for them to buy, they will buy it! I've really wanted to obtain a copy of Being Colloquial in Esperanto for some time now, as you may know. It costs $15 from the ELNA website, so I never got around to buying it. One day I suggested on the library website that they get a copy. There's this handy little form you can fill out for book suggestions. And lo and behold, I searched their web card catalog just a second ago, and there are TWO copies on order to the Central library. I put in a hold for one, and soon I shall be a picking up a fresh new copy of Being Colloquial in Esperanto after school at the renovated Hillsdale Library across the street from school. So cool.

I plugged my stereo in again today. I was going to take it in to get fixed and I'd forgotten the exact details of the problem. Lo and behold that I couldn't reproduce the problem. It was kind of disappointing, but satisfying nonetheless. So, I basically read and listened to music all day. I satisfied by Beethoven fix by listening very loudly to symphonies 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8. There's nothing like loud classical music. I still need to get no. 4 from the library and copy it to my hard drive so I can complete my playlist of Beethoven's symphonies. That's the job for tomorrow. I also finished Crome Yellow and Der Antichrist. It's amazing how much stuff there is in Crome Yellow that's a total precursor Brave New World. It seems that Huxley had some thoughts on his mind for a very long time. It's fine feel-good book with a some depth and great wit, but it's not quite meaningful enough to really be a classic. Der Antichrist was good, but not stunning. Nietzsche writes in really bizarre language that's filled with weird metaphors and puns. While effective, his skill as a writer can distract from the pure dialectical content of the work. The indictment of everything Judeo-Christian and his thoughts on Buddhism are quite compelling though. I also started Brave New World Revisited. The first chapter (all I've read thus far) on over-population is interesting but hardly brings up anything of which I'm not aware. After that it's on to the Dostoevsky. Although I didn't think it was possible, I'm genuinely tiring of Huxley. After reading nearly all of his major novels and some essays, it's time to move on and parasitize another author.

En aliaj novaĵoj, Erin came back from Boston on Tuesday. It seems that she has two jobs so far, and is on the verge of getting a third. She should be occupied fine for the summer, and she might make a little bit in the process. Never mind the fact that she's earning just about minimum wage. I'm not getting minimum wage for my summer research, not that I'm complaining. It's amazing that I get as much money as I do: $1,000 for 296 hours. It's going to be bueno sin par. Plus I'll be sinking a couple hundred bucks into taking the Calculus at PCC. Basically, I'll be gone from 8 AM to 10 PM two days per week, and 8 AM to 5 PM (minus travel time) three days per week during the summer. Then I'll do homework on weekends.

It's about achieving the ideal state of mental occupation and perfection. The state of perfection is, of course, an ideal, and like all ideals it is unachievable. This leaves two courses of action: the course of idleness, and the course of industry. The course of idleness makes no approach to perfection and is therefore undesirable. This leaves the course of industry. While it strives for perfection inevitably in vain, one must remember: "L’âme du plaisir est dans la recherche même du plaisir." So in reality, the pursuit of perfection is perfection itself. Or something like that.

"Deus, qualem Paulus creavit, dei negatio."

--Friedrich Nietzsche, Der Antichrist: 47

It seems that a new version of Movable Type was released today. They now have a complex licensing system, but it looks like there's still a free version. I'll have to upgrade soon, probably after a couple of bug-fix releases.

Princeton
You're smart, you're thin, you're pretty, and
goddamit, people love you. You are destined for
great, great things, little Princetonian. Let
there be a never-ending stream of
Country-Club-Like institutions in your unmarred
future.


Which Ivy League University is right for YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla

In English we finally finished our sappy analysis of the worthless book The House on Mango Street and are on to reading the play Inherit the Wind. It's really good. It has some scathing wittiness, humor, and is based on the great controversy of the Scopes trial: creationism vs. evolution. This means that not only do we get to discuss the play itself, but we get to debate the Bible and evolutionary theory. It hasn't been much better.

"Dan, I've got it. I couldn't stop thinking about it all through US History. We're going to call it 'Kadish Komputing Kompany.'"

--Jonathan Kadish, explaining why his computer company is going to be called the KKK. Only Jon could think of something this asinine and abrasive; however, I've been told that their tech-support rates are quite competitive.

I've realized that most people disagree with me about most things. It's amazing, really. A sign of genius? Stupidity? Neither? All three? I'd say the lattermost.

I had this great epiphany of my own stupidity today. I was contemplating beauty—physics, that is—and how cool it is that the same relationship that governs gravity also governs electrical attraction: the inverse square law. Then I was daydreaming about how amazing it is that something so simple as the inverse square law should describe all gravity (I know, I know, Newtonian mechanics are technically wrong, but they work for most practical purposes)... and then BANG!! a textbook fell on my head, metaphorically of course. But of course it’s an inverse square law, stupid!! It wouldn’t make any sense if it weren’t. And believe me, my ego shrank two sizes that day. Actually, that day was today. It was on the bus, where I have all of my profound thoughts.

Imagine a point in space. Now imagine a square in space of area A, having each vertex situated some distance d from the point. You have a pyramid of sorts. Extend the lines of length d so they have a distance of 2d. Now connect all of those points to form another larger square. This square has an area of 4A. If you extend the lines yet again so they have a length 3d, and you draw the square, you will get a square with an area 9A. Duh! In other words, if you have a force (like gravity or electrical attraction) emanating from some point, the area over which it is applied varies inversely to the square of the distance. Now that’s not too bad. But the fact is, it makes sense that gravity is governed by an inverse square law, because how could it be any other way? It’s so intuitive. It’s rather obvious that gravity has to work that way. It also makes sense that electrical attraction should work that way. What doesn’t make sense are the weird things like the strong force and the weak force, but hey, who needs quantum mechanics anyway? It’s too complicated for me to understand, especially given how stupid I seem to be. Physics is so cool--the subject, I mean, not the class. Ms. Feller needs to back to Brown and do all of her metaphysical junk and power-craving there. She needs to stop polluting her classes' minds with her idiocy: they're too valuable... which is kind of ironic, and should give you a good idea of just how obnoxious she is.

Has anyone ever read any Sartre? I'm going to wait for the summer before I dig into any Dostoevsky. Dan claims I should read The Brothers Karamazov, but Crime and Punishment is considered to be a little more quintessential.

I've decided that there is no better lens through which to analyze literature than through psychology.

"Good luck and have fun!"

--The last sentence of an assignment sheet for the doubly aforementioned essay. I scoff. Bah!

I'm writing this essay as described in the previous post (it's going to get a fabulous grade, assuming I don't make the embarrasing proofreading errors that kept my last paper just out of the coveted 98+% category), and I'm beginning to doubt the effectiveness of many of these fundamental literary devices. Despite all of the complaining I make about this book, and despite my hatred of it, it is really a well-crafted (he's getting inside my head!) work. Anyway, I was analyzing a vignette and talking about how the yellow color of a stolen car and the blue color of the pursuing police car (I feel like I'm describing some kind of action book; trust me, it's not!) enhance the tension of the passage, by their nature as opposites on the color wheel. Then I got thinking, who actually would ever notice this, aside from the ambitious, but stupid high school student like myself? I mean, even if reading a book seriously, it is very rare that anyone would notice such a minor detail, much less have it enhance their perception of conflict. This assumes that the perception of tension by color dichotomy is a purely conscious process. I reckon it probably is, but you never know. The author's effort is really being wasted on most people here, unless they're very seriously trying to analyze it. It seems to boil down to a couple fundamental questions: Are literary techniques perceived subliminally and unconsciously? We know they are for pure senses like sight and hearing, but can this occur in words, the interpretation of which is inherently a purely intellectual process? Is the meaning of a book entirely dependent on the audience who reads it? In other words, is the author's intent entirely irrelevant to the effect of the book because it can be interpreted in an infinite variety of ways? Now why can't we write about THAT in English? Using the words and pretensions of the Dean of Admissions at Reed College, whom I hate, that'd be like thinking about thinking about thinking... so "intellectual" and "humanistic!"

I have to write an essay for English... or rather, a "take home final" assigned on friday and due tomorrow. I thought it would be like all of the other essays that Hawking has assigned for this book, but no! It's supposed to be 3-5 pages long. By the time we're done with this terrible book called The House on Mango Street (only 100 pages, half of which are empty), I will have probably written about 10 pages of essay. 10 pages! I didn't think it was even possible to write 10 pages on this worthless contemporary tripe. But we get a choice of our mode of death:

"1. Choose three vignettes and discuss how they are representative of the entire novel. That is, what themes do they develop? How do these themes impact the main characters? How do the themes created a unifying structure for the book despite its non-traditional plot line?

2. Using the entire book as your playground, explore the novel with respect to the following literary tools:
Use of figurative language (metaphors anyone?)
Thematic development
Character development
Mango Street as social commentary"

Seeing as I'm going to die--no, seeing as I'm already dead from this book's hideous lack of worth, it shouldn't really matter which I pick.

It appears that sadly I am a patronizing person. According to Colin Corbett, being patronizing is necessarily bad though. His argument was, if someone really is of a lower intellectual or developmental level, it should be seen as a good thing to treat them differently than an "equal;" I'm going to disrespectfully disagree with that, although I think that there may have been some confusion regarding the definition of the word. (Is this paragraph too long? You know, in Utopia, Thomas More wrote a sentence of over 900 words. This post isn't even that long.)

Anyway, my latest fascination is with psychology and the mind. Let me introduce a compelling thought. While Freud was trying find basis for neurosis in sex, Alfred Adler sought the same explanation through the inferiority complex. Essentially, an inferiority complex results from physical inability or faulty relationships. When a person's abilities or beliefs are rejected, they develop the need to prove their worth, and thus their actions are in pursuit of validating themselves. Remarkably, it's applicable to just about everyone in some way or another. It seems kind of like the the need for social approval on an individual's level.

Speaking of inferiority, the US History AP was yesterday. I've decided that the College Board is a form of low-level terrorism. They control nearly all college related tests, and are a profit-based organization. The theory that businesses are more effective at education fails here. Compare the advanced placement program to the International Baccalauriate program. IB is way better designed as a curriculum, and it's more challenging. Lots of colleges don't even recognize IB credit for college though. AP, the inferior testing standard, is nevertheless accepted as the ubiquitous standard.

Returning to the US History AP... It was far from the worst-case scenario, but still not good. I think I did okay on the multiple choice (80 in 55 minutes). It was probably roughly on track for a 3 or 4. I pulled through on the essays (1 document-based, and 2 free-response in 1 hour 50 minutes, plus 15 minutes of mandatory reading time) pretty well. After writing 10 pages, my hand was feeling miserable. My essays were decent, probably on track for a 4. I guess I can't disclose what the questions were about, but for those of you who have taken it, the first question really scared me. I could hardly remember anything about the topic. The second one (I chose question #3) was hard in that same respect too. The third one (question #5) was great though. The only problem is that I was getting really tired by the time the third essay rolled around. I'm not sure I used enough direct factual support (as opposed to identifying trends).

They administered the test at the old Washington High School, which is now some administrative building (roughly across the Morrison Bridge on 14th). This let us quickly walk downtown to eat lunch, and spend the rest of the school day there. Leeor and I wanted to go to India House, but no one would go with us. So we followed everyone to the Cinco de Mayo thing on the waterfront. It was pretty boring and hardly Mexican at all. Only about 25% of the food stalls actually sold Mexican food. The rest of it was composed of expensive rides and advertisement booths with free advertisement paraphanelia. After some people left us to go home, I and the remaining people took the MAX to Owen's dad's office to get water. In the process we went through some blocks that probably have the highest crime rate on the entire westside; it was fun to see Meghan start getting really worried. We briefly went up to Pioneer Square and then everyone went home, except me. I went up to the library for an hour then met my mom to go home.

Ted, you are officially unbanned. Sorry for the extended punishment. Not that being unable to comment on this blog is punishment, given its general feebleness.

Psychologically, physiologically... it's all very terrible. The guilt complex is eating away my body and mind.

Do you think that I am patronizing?

Comment to answer.

Why is it cheaper to buy 2 pairs of glasses than 1? You don't believe me? It's true! When I bought my glasses, it was cheaper to buy 2 pairs of glasses than 1. And why are millions of people starving in Sudan if it is economic beneficial for me to consume more? Speaking of consuming more: to my knowledge, a Whopper sandwich from Burger King contains 670 calories and can often be purchased for 99 cents (I think. I got the price off some Reuters report that was pretty old though.), while 1 pound of apple, equivalent in price, contains 220 calories. Think of the amount of energy that goes into whoppers: meat (due to the amount of energy devoted to raising animals, meat ends up being polyfold less efficient than plants for food), bread (wheat has to be processed, made into bread), cheese, all of the little condiments, the paper wrappers for the things, transportation for it all, etc. Think about the amount of energy that goes into apples: water, trimming, someone picking them, transportation. First of all, one must realize the cardinal rule of capitalism and the rest of the world in which we live: hypocrisy. And yes, communism is far more hypocritical than captalism... which is really scary. But just exactly how is it that in America, one has the economic incentive to consume more rather than less? One might try and explain our hamburger scenario by some wrangling with supply and demand, but things are deeper than that isolated instance. I think that American society is in a period of incredible oversupply and overconsumption. As you may know, capitalistic economies (since virtually all large-scale economies for the past 4,000 years have been capitalistic in nature, yes I'm talking about all major economic systems to date) rely on the premise of expansion to survive. Competition requires expansion. I have said before that this constant increase in output is impossible to maintain forever, therefore at some point humanity must develop an economic system unlike any other (i.e. one involving absolutely no capitalistic tendencies), it must self-destruct and start the process of capitalistic expansion all over, or revert to some 1984-like economy where war compensates for problems in the cycle of supply and demand. Up to that point, we should of course see the improvement of standards of living. The issue that I raise, is how far can standards of living increase. Can they increase forever? Certainly, people 1,000 years ago could not imagine the phenomenal improvements to the standard of living. I think I'm losing my train of thought here, so bear with me...

Let's go back to our current situation where overconsumption is being encouraged. This idea is a little weird now that I think some more about it, but it might have a shread of merit in it. It seems that the reason that we can now get more for less and less for more is because of this need for the economy to continually increase standards of living. That is, the American economy has reached such a glut in overproduction that is must compensate for it by forced overconsumption, in order to continue the capitalistic process. Worthy of note is the incredibly uneven QOL for America and W. Europe compared to the rest of the world. This is obviously partially due to centuries of economic domination that has forced most of the world into being economically subserviant to American and European needs. I really hate to turn this into America-bashing, but this all seems to be the consequence of an inevitable process. Needing to continue competition, the rest of the world was economically dominated, and now, further needing to continue competition, Americans are forced into this absurd situation which maximizes waste. Essentially this is no different from the 1984 war-waste economy, where selling more to the consumer is used a means by which to prop up the economy and continue expansion. This results in the creation of massive amounts of waste. Once again, I shall use the example of the Hummer H2. The superfluity of the H2 is comicly pointless (it gets 13 mpg in city, and is simply an incredibly giant, unaerodynamic, steel box put on a paltry Chevrolet Tahoe wheelbase), yet it is an immense use of resources and thus is very beneficial to the economy. The fact that this has led to the global economic disparity is inhumane and repulsive. It has led to extreme decadence in order to satisfy the continuation of the machine. As an aside, Friedrich Nietzsche said of decadence (albeit in a religious context): "Wherever the will to power begins to decline, in whatever form, there is always an accompanying decline physiologically, a decadence. The divinity of this decadence, shorn of its masculine virtues and passions, is converted perforce into a god of the physiologically degraded, of the weak. Of course, they do not call themselves the weak; they call themselves "the good." (The Antichrist: 17)

I've done a very poor job explaining all this, and it all sounds very Marxist. It is NOT Marxist however. Marxism, or communism, or whatever, always leads to exactly the same problems, often to a more extreme degree. It is horrible to discount Marx on account of this though. Marx pinpointed the very flaws of the extreme capitalism that dominated Europe throughout the 19th century. He was correct in his observations of the ills of society, but he was totally wrong in how to correct them. It's still incubating in my mind. Maybe I'm just mad at the endless hypocrisy. You have to admit, it is sickening. Gah!

I was doing some studying for the US History AP, catching up on all the things that aren't in our crappy textbook (despite my respect for Mr. Murphy, I can't believe that he's opposed to using a real AP textbook. Moreover, I can't believe that he chose to use this awful text... I suppose the school got the books for free though). There is this brilliant notion called "virtual representation" that the British used to justify their opposition to giving American colonists representation in Parliament. Essentially, virtual representation states that the members of Parliament represent all British citizens, regardless of who elects them. That's kind of like saying that the people of Portland alone should elect the president for the entire country. Better yet, I alone should elect all elected officials in the country. They would definately represent of all citizens. Genuis, eh?

"In my condemnation of Christianity I surely hope I do no injustice to a related religion with an even larger number of believers: I allude to Buddhism. Both are to be reckoned among the nihilistic religions--they are both decadence religions--but they are separated from each other in a very remarkable way. For the fact that he is able to compare them at all the critic of Christianity is indebted to the scholars of India.--Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity--it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation. The concept, "god," was already disposed of before it appeared. Buddhism is the only genuinely positive religion to be encountered in history, and this applies even to its epistemology (which is a strict phenomenalism) --It does not speak of a "struggle with sin," but, yielding to reality, of the "struggle with suffering." Sharply differentiating itself from Christianity, it puts the self-deception that lies in moral concepts be hind it; it is, in my phrase,beyond good and evil.--The two physiological facts upon which it grounds itself and upon which it bestows its chief attention are: first, an excessive sensitiveness to sensation, which manifests itself as a refined susceptibility to pain, and secondly, an extraordinary spirituality, a too protracted concern with concepts and logical procedures, under the influence of which the instinct of personality has yielded to a notion of the "impersonal." (--Both of these states will be familiar to a few of my readers, the objectivists, by experience, as they are to me). These physiological states produced a depression, and Buddha tried to combat it by hygienic measures. Against it he prescribed a life in the open, a life of travel; moderation in eating and a careful selection of foods; caution in the use of intoxicants; the same caution in arousing any of the passions that foster a bilious habit and heat the blood; finally, no worry, either on one`s own account or on account of others. He encourages ideas that make for either quiet contentment or good cheer--he finds means to combat ideas of other sorts. He understands good, the state of goodness, as something which promotes health. Prayer is not included, and neither is asceticism. There is no categorical imperative nor any disciplines, even within the walls of a monastery (--it is always possible to leave--). These things would have been simply means of increasing the excessive sensitiveness above mentioned. For the same reason he does not advocate any conflict with unbelievers; his teaching is antagonistic to nothing so much as to revenge, aversion, ressentiment (--"enmity never brings an end to enmity": the moving refrain of all Buddhism. . .) And in all this he was right, for it is precisely these passions which, in view of his main regiminal purpose, are unhealthful. The mental fatigue that he observes, already plainly displayed in too much "objectivity" (that is, in the individual`s loss of interest in himself, in loss of balance and of "egoism"), he combats by strong efforts to lead even the spiritual interests back to the ego. In Buddha`s teaching egoism is a duty. The "one thing needful," the question "how can you be delivered from suffering," regulates and determines the whole spiritual diet. (--Perhaps one will here recall that Athenian who also declared war upon pure "scientificality," to wit, Socrates, who also elevated egoism to the estate of a morality)."

--Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist: 20

I was just realizing what a feat of organization our library system is. First of all, there's the fact that millions of books have to be properly organized, coded, catalogued, and kept track of. But what amazes me more is that one can obtain a hold on a book from anywhere in the city's 20+ libraries and get it delivered to any other library for free or sent to them for $2. It's so cool. I can basically get any book I want and walk over to the Hilldale library after school to pick it up. In reality is isn't that profound of a concept, I mean, it's been like this for a long time. Nevertheless, it's never really occurred to me the beauty of the whole system.

While on the topic of books, I think that it's worth making an analysis of Mr. Hawking, the student teacher that recently took over our class for all of 4th quarter. No question, he's different from Meiner. Most people dislike him because they think he's not as interesting and he's more difficult. Granted, both of these things are true to an extent. But I think Hawking is getting some unfair criticism. First of all, I actually like his teaching style a little bit more in some ways, and I think I might even be learning better with him. Despite this, I still think Meiner is a better teacher. Part of the reason that Meiner is an effective teacher is because he has mastered what one might call "shock and awe" tactics. He is very forceful and direct in discussing the book, has a horde of odd mannerisms that keep one's attention, and he provides a lot of positive feedback in disscussions that encourage people to take risks in analyzing the literature. He keeps the class thoroughly amused with the rulers that he bangs on almost any surface, when he's trying to make a point. They often break, so he has a drawer entirely dedicated to spare rulers. These sorts of things, including the fact that he is simply a good teacher, make students universally like him. He also doesn't assign much homework: one's grade is based almost entirely off quizzes, essay tests, and occasional large essays. His quizzes are always kind of a joke in their simplicity though. This all combines to make a very good teacher, but he has a tendency of wasting a significant amount of time on useless things. But Hawking is remarkably different. He intially tried to adopt the odd mannerisms of Meiner, but it never really panned out because he wasn't being original. He's still funny in his own way though. We spend virtually the entire period doing really focused discussions, which can be exhausting, but productive. The largest change, however, is the quizzes and homework. He assigns lots of small 1-3 page essays (1-2 per week), and his quizzes are more like small essay tests. They ask questions that are almost fit for full-fleged essays, but there's usually 4 of them, so you really can only answer about 2/3 of a page for each. This is opposed to Meiner's pathetic 1-2 sentence questions. In the end, it boils down to the fact that the class is now significantly more difficult. I think I'm glad though, I learning a slightly more, and actually enjoying it somewhat. Hawking will be a really great teacher in a year or so though.

I'm becoming convinced that everyone in the world totally disagrees with all of my philosophical, life-perspective views. Now, it may just be that I happen to know a lot of very vocal emotionalists who disagree with me by epic proportions, but I hear nothing but distortion of my views and extreme criticism. Both Lindsay and Shiyuan think that I am thoroughly crazy, and I think the lunch group would agree. But I mean, they're all wrong. They have to be. Because rationalism, by definition is rational and therefore is the most correct explanation. It's infallible. The only thing more infallible is nihilism.