Want to want (1)
I heard a phrase recently, and I can apply it to a few situations in my life.  The phrase is "Want to want".  Used in context:  "I want to want to go to the gym, but I just don't."  Another way of saying it is "I wish I had the desire to go to the gym."  It's different from "I want to go to the gym."  It implies a lack of desire, and a desire to change that lack of desire. 

I went to a financial advisor recently.  This guy explained the inner workings of money to such detail that my brain actually shut down.  I died for a few minutes and was only awoken when he said something about chocolate-covered dollar bills.  The thing about money is that as long as I have some, I really don't care about it.  It doesn't interest me in the least.  I find it very boring to hear about finances and stock options.  I don't understand annuities and life insurance, and I don't have the desire to.  I wish I had the desire to learn about money.  I'd love to have the desire to study economics and learn about the federal reserve.  I want to want to learn about the value of the dollar and how compound interest is calculated.  But when it comes down to it, I just don't.  I wish I wanted to, but I don't. #money

Matlab
Matlab (actually it's MATLAB, but I don't like things that are needlessly capitalized) is a math/science/engineering computer application that college professors claim is "extremely powerful" and "a must-have skill".  To students, it's "a waste of time" and "unnecessarily complicated".  What I've realized just recently is that this reaction occurs because of how it's taught.  Matlab was introduced to me in a calculus class as a program that was able to graph functions in 2D and 3D.  This ability wasn't very advanced, seeing that my handheld calculator could graph in 2D in a fraction of the time and other computer programs could graph in 3D with a nice visual interface.  The fact that Matlab had a command line said to me that it was old and useless.  Everything's graphical these days, so obviously this program is outdated. 

But then I got out of school and entered a job that uses this program pretty extensively.  And I'm finally realizing its capabilities.  It's great for analyzing huge amounts of data.  It can easily plot things, and these things (arrays, vectors, etc.) can easily be manipulated.  The program's command line is what makes it so powerful.  Essentially, it's a programming language.  You can declare variables, perform mathematical operations, use if/then statements, etc.  This is what the professors never told me.  They said it was a tool to graph math functions.  It always seemed a little redundant to write several lines of code in order to plot a function when it could be easily done in other programs with fewer steps.  Matlab's website even says, "MATLAB is a high-level language and interactive environment that enables you to perform computationally intensive tasks faster than with traditional programming languages such as C, C++, and Fortran."  The thing that sets it apart from traditional programming languages is that there's no need for a compiler.  All data and information is entered directly into Matlab through the command line or a text file (M-file).  There's no need to create an executable, though this means that Matlab's functionality can't be ported to a non-Matlab-ready device. 

All in all, it's a great program, and I wish those stupid Ph.D.'s taught it the right way.  Buncha jerks. #education