Time in class Apr 20, 2006
I actually wrote about this before, but it came up again, so I'm writing about it again:  Time spent in class is time wasted.  I can't even pretend to try to waste my time in class and get something useful out of it.  I'm currently taking a single grad class that meets for two and a half hours on Wednesday evenings.  It's not that much of a commitment.  But I get absolutely nothing from the class.  It's completely worthless.  If all the notes and assignments are online, what's the point in going?  Maybe if the professor taught something, I could try to squeeze some information out of the class.  But here's how it works:  He talks for two and a half hours about how to model and simulate things on a computer, then he gives us assignments that have virtually nothing to do with what he talked about.  The only conceivable reason I could formulate for attending the class is to ask him questions about the assignments, but even that's a stupid idea.  The only time to talk to him is after class, and there's just no way I can sit around for two and half hours to ask this guy a question.  I hate school, and I only have one class per week. #education
Four point oh Apr 17, 2006
I'm glad I didn't try to be one of those 4.0 people in school.  I don't think it's worth it.  I only knew a few people in college who were in the running for a 4.0, and those people were super smart.  They didn't have to do much to get good grades.  And they actually liked classes.  These are the kinds of people who went on to grad school, which is something I'm glad I didn't make it into.  Sure, I got good grades and I'm technically "in grad school" right now, but it's not the same.  I have to put a lot of effort into school and I really don't enjoy classes.  Actually, I hate school.  But I think it would've been a lot worse if I was aiming for perfection.  To have to worry about every single grade on every single assignment and every single question on every single test, I would've gone crazy.  I'm ok with "pretty good". #education
Normalcy Feb 10, 2006
Wow, another politics post!  Actually, this is hardly related to politics.  Don't worry. 

Warren G. Harding ran for president in 1920 with the slogan, "A Return to Normalcy", which suggested returning to a normal state of affairs after World War I.  The word "normalcy" was met with criticism from a bunch of people because they thought he meant to use the word "normality", but used a made-up word instead (later referred to as a "Bushism").  My history teacher in high school, the infamous Lou Palazzi, referred to Harding as an idiot who made up a word and brought it into widespread use by putting it in his presidential slogan.  I've believed this lie for the past 8 years.  Whenever people use the word "normalcy" in a sentence, I'm tempted to (and sometimes actually do) point out their use of a made-up word. 

It was later found that "normalcy" was used as far back as 1857, but it had simply fallen out of use. 

Lesson learned:  Never trust a teacher.  Propagandists! #education
College size Nov 1, 2005
Sometimes I wish I went to a big college.  I wish I could've gone to Big 10 football games and tailgate parties.  I wish I could say the name of my school and have 90% of the population of the country know exactly what I'm talking about.  I wish I could name famous people that graduated from my school.  I wish I lived in a town who's population consisted of the students going to the local school.  A town named Collegeville or College Park.  I wish I went to school where it was warm.  Why didn't I do that? 

I wish I went to school in Texas, where schools like the University of Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech are synonymous with winning and rivalries.  Or I wish I went to school in Florida, where schools like Florida State, the University of Miami, and the University of Florida have football teams consistently ranked in the top 25 in the nation, and usually in the top 10.  The bottom line is that I wish I went to a football school.  Apparently, this wasn't very important to me when I was in high school.  Academics!  Grades!  Forget that.  Football is more important.

But then, other times, I'm glad I went to a tiny school.  The students had a considerable amount of power and influence.  The professors (some of them) knew their students (some of them).  I wasn't in competition with a million people.  The school sponsored events with free food.  The school organized dances/proms like high school.  And of course, school is where I met Wendy. #education
The system (2) Jun 6, 2005
I think the system of the world is kinda dumb.  Or at least it is in this country.  When I think about how I got to where I am, I don't regret too many of the choices I made.  But when I hear about kids who are just graduating high school and applying to colleges, I feel really bad for them.  Who thought of this system?  As the corrupt educational system is implanting left-wing propaganda into sterile young minds, they tell the students to choose a career path based on the things they've learned.  Do you actually expect a 17-year-old child to make a decision that will affect the rest of their lives?  That's crazy!  For me, it was relatively easy.  I was always pretty good at math.  What do you do with math?  Become an engineer!  Or a math teacher.  But since my interpersonal skills are abysmal, I chose to stay away from anything that would require interaction with other human beings, especially interaction that would require personal involvement and direct contact.  Engineering it is!  But think about these poor kids that are given a crash course introduction to physics and calculus.  Do you think they'll want to pursue anything like that?  No!  Or what about that aspiring young writer/singer/philosopher/historian?  You shovel some garbage into their minds about Berlioz and existentialism and you think they'll continue with that career path?  I guess I'm realizing that most decisions about the future are made before this stuff happens.  For me, I knew that Ms. Curcione's childlike romp through physics was only temporary.  Or at least I hoped.  And it was.  (On a side note, someone should really remove her from the position of affecting bright young minds and put her in some other place far, far away.)  And I suppose that those people that went into "liberal arts" didn't need to decide what they wanted to do until they got to college.  My only objection to that is that you can't really go into liberal arts and then decide that you want to study engineering, unless you're prepared to start over completely and go to school for another 4-5 years. #education
Mandatory training Jun 6, 2005
There's something indescribably beautiful about the words "mandatory training" that goes beyond my comprehension.  Mandatory, meaning "Required or commanded by authority; obligatory."  It's poetic.  And when the teacher of the class asks what I want to achieve by completing this mandatory training, how am I supposed to think of anything other than "fulfilling a requirement"?  There's nothing else there.  There's no desire.  There's no objectives or yearning for knowledge.  I'm in the dumb class because I have to be there.  That's it. #education
Busy May 10, 2005
Why is it that I can sit around my boring job and do a sum total of nothing for about 9 months straight, but then all of a sudden, I don't have enough time to get everything done?  My main project is making me busy enough, but now I also have a final that I have to get done for the grad class I'm taking.  What's the deal?  Why can't things be spaced out?  But on the other hand, I've always found that I get the most done when I'm the busiest.  Unfortunately this is a logical argument; the opposite is also true:  I get the least done when I'm not busy at all.  But aside from logic, it's really true:  when I'm busier, I tend to work faster, so I end up getting more done.  I just sometimes wish things could be spaced out so that I could move and work at the same pace all the time, instead of speeding up to slow down.  But anyway, back to work... #education
Fakin' it Apr 28, 2005
[I realize now that I should've written more while I was in school.  I keep writing after I come back from my 1 class because it's the only time that I have to sit around and do nothing but listen to some dude talk.  Since I don't learn anything in class, I let my mind wander].  I realized another thing about myself:  I've pretty successfully faked my way through life, which has consisted mostly of school up to this point.  At some point in the future, I'll be able to say that I faked my way through school, not all of life.  But at this point, I've been in school for about 19 of 23 years in my life, so I consider my life to have consisted primarily of school.  But I digress.  I've realized this concept before.  As I was sitting in class listening to how much other people actually understand (which is a lot at times), I realized how very little I understand.  Even the questions that people ask when they don't understand something have more knowledge of the subject than I do.  Yet somehow, by the grace of God, I manage to get by.  And not only that, I do pretty well, praise God.  My secret is this:  don't try to learn everything.  Or anything.  Just figure out the pattern.  All classes are based on a pattern.  Different teachers have different ways of giving tests and different ways of grading, but they all follow a pattern.  You don't need to master a subject to pass a class.  You need to pass the tests to pass a class.  Note to younger readers (if there are any, ever):  don't listen to me; do your best, learn all you can, because you don't want to waste all the time you've spent in school.  I would like to take my own advice, but I guess I just have a little trouble basing my life on my career in school.  It means nothing.  It's just a way for me to get a job and make some money so I can do the things I really wanna do, like drive to Vermont for the weekend to go snowboarding.  Or go to Disney World with my wife.  I have a skewed perspective. #education
School Apr 22, 2005
As I was walking away from my grad class during the break in the middle, I realized something again (most things are realized more than once before they're blogged):  I learn nothing in class.  In any class.  Ever.  Nothing.  I only learn things on my own, when I do the homeworks or read the notes myself.  No teaching is required.  This is how I felt through most of college too.  I'd sit in class and waste my time, only to learn everything on my own when I did the homework.  The only time I ever thought class was useful was when I was taking certain calculus classes and I took huge amounts of notes.  Especially if Maz was the professor.  He'd always do tons of example problems, and the homeworks were just like the examples.  I usually found the book to be relatively useless, and all my learning was done while doing homework and looking back at example problems.  Another useless (and this time completely useless) book was called "Fluid Mechanics" by Frank M. White.  Utterly useless.  It's like trying to learn Japanese from a Chinaman.  The book assumes that the reader/student already knows everything.  So it just talks about all kinds of crazy fluidesque topics without introducing them or explaining them.  I was glad to be done with that book and that class, just like pretty much every other class I've ever taken in my whole entire life.  What, would I actually miss a class?  I don't think so.  I don't really have feelings.  And I especially don't have feelings for classes that beat me and dragged me through the mud.  But anyway, what really kills me about this class I'm taking right now is that one of the books is that same stupid fluid mechanics book.  I was mildly excited to learn that I'd be getting books that were included in the price of the class (thanks to you, Joe Taxpayer).  But when I found out that it was this worthless fluids book, I was quite disappointed. #education
A reason to go to college Mar 21, 2005
We had some people over for dinner on Saturday night. It was cool to see everybody. But Mike walked in our apartment and noticed our ginormous kitty tower and said, "Who is this kid?" This is just one example of how all my friends expect me to act in a certain way and say certain things, which is why I'm so glad I went away to college. I wouldn't really call it peer pressure, but that's sort of what it is. I never really felt pressured into doing certain things or acting a certain way, but I always felt like I determined my position in the world probably when I was about 12 or 13. Everything after that was based on how I acted when I was that age. So any time I tried to act different in some way, people would say, "You don't usually do that. You're not like that." My point is, what if I want to be like that? What if I want to change? This is why it was sooo good to go away to college. I was in a whole different setting with all new people who knew nothing about me. That's when my personality was truly defined. I still had some of the same old quirks and mannerisms, but God worked on me and changed me little by little. That's why college was so good for me. Yeah there was all the school work and pressure and stress and running around and sleepless nights, but those experiences partially formed who I am today. #education