Inheriting Appreciation

    I had a teacher in college named Shlomo. He's a fantastic teacher; his lectures are rife with information, you learn a ton, and he imparts a lot of passion and excitement into the material. Shlomo told a story one time about going to an art museum, just for kicks. He wasn't an art fan, but wanted to see what the fuss was about. He remembers seeing a painting and not being very impressed with it. He went back to the same museum later, and there was a tour taking place, so he tagged along. The tour guide stopped at this same painting and espoused all of the things he loved and respected about this painting. Shlomo left with the same love of the painting as his tour guide, and he learned something too: Sometimes people don't appreciate something until they learn why it should be appreciated.
     A little later (this might have happened in the same lecture, in fact) Shlomo is working through a proof of something. I don't know what the proof was on, but it was in a geometry class. He looks at an equation and says "Maybe you don't like this equation. You don't like it? You change it. Where else can this happen in life but in mathematics? You want something, you get it. Only in mathematics."
     I'd never thought of this. Truly I didn't really stop to think about it until much, much later. His lectures were dense, and I usually left feeling a bit punch-drunk as my brain tried to wrap itself around the new keys to the universe it had discovered. One day later I was solving an equation with a bunch of fractions, and instinctively I got rid of the fractions. No one likes working with fractions.

     It hit me at that moment. I didn't want the fractions, so I got rid of the fractions. I was able to get what I wanted immediately. This doesn't happen in life! Only in mathematics!!

     Let me explain a bit more, but it involves actual math so feel free to skip down to more good stuff. 

The above equation has 4 different fractions with no common denominators. I have to teach my students how to solve these types of equations, and when I show the first one their faces go white. I say "What, you don't like fractions? Fine. I don't either. Let's get rid of them." If we multiply everything by 30 (the lowest common denominator of all 4 fractions), we get the equation 20x + 24 = 15x - 25.  No fractions. Hallelujah.

     I pause here and yell at my class. We didn't like the fractions so we got rid of them. You have that kind of power! You have that freedom! If you don't like something in math, you can change it! You're given rules to follow and you follow the rules, but do whatever you want. Where else in life does this happen? Where else can you want something and get it right away? If you want to get stronger, you have to work hard. If you want to get richer or prettier, you have to be extremely lucky or you have to work hard. If you want to get taller, well you can't. But in math, when you want to get rid of the fractions, you get rid of the fractions. I love that about mathematics. I love many things about mathematics, but that's a big one.


     My hope is this is a turning point for my students, where they go from what is their worst-nightmare-of-a-problem, to a realization that math is potentially wonderful. I try to keep sharing this point, and don't mind it when they laugh at my nerdiness. Just like how Shlomo inherited the love of a painting from someone else, Shlomo had to show me this appreciation for math, and then I inherited it. I hope if I can show this appreciation to my students, they can inherit it as well.



     Well, I've thought more about this, of course - this relationship of rules and freedom in mathematics. As long as you follow the rules you can do what you want. My parents have often said that kids want boundaries. They want to have clear rules of what they can and cannot do. They want to have these rules enforced consistently and fairly. If they have freedom within those rules they will be more or less happy and content. This is just like mathematics. There are extremely clear rules that are very, very consistently enforced, but if you follow those rules you can do as you please.
     So then I think about society. Ideally, society would be full of easy-to-understand, all-encompassing, non-loop-holey rules that are enforced but are fair. This doesn't happen, and that leads to all kinds of problems, but wouldn't it be great of society was more like mathematics in this sense?
     (Heck, isn't this kind of like how God gives us rules to follow, but freedoms within those rules?)
     You are thinking "But Grant, what about art? What about freedom of expression? What about diversity? What if some rules work for some people and not for others?" My reply? Shut up hippie. Seriously, though, that's all true. We won't ever have that idyllic society where a fair and just government makes and enforces laws that are for the equal protection and benefit of all. It won't happen. That sucks.
     But I can have that idyllic world in my small, misunderstood world of mathematics. There's freedom in all of those restrictions and rules that students don't understand. I just need to get them to appreciate it.

Take My Advice: Skip the Previews

     I'd like to take a moment to bring to the public's attention a growing problem that no one seems to care about: spoilers in movie previews. Really, it's not even spoilers that I am referring to, but the fact that trailers seem to contain all the best parts of movies these days. It's as if a movie is filler for a trailer, and the trailer's goal was to make everyone see the movie on opening weekend - before people can tell each other "wow, Paul Blart was awful" (that move made $146 million off of a few good gags in a trailer). Seeing lots of scenes in a trailer about an action movie or a thriller can give away a big part of the whole movie experience. So take my advice: if there is a movie you know you are going to see, skip the previews.
     I first did this with The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers. I was in high school and extremely excited about the movie (and also extremely cool). I decided I wasn't going to watch any previews, read any reports or reviews, and let my anticipation grow. I called it watching the movie "with virgin eyes," (seriously, all the girls liked me back then). I probably did this for attention more than anything, but I found out that I liked it. I enjoyed not knowing anything about the movie (you know, besides reading the books).
     One of my favorite movie experiences ever happened the same way, as I've discussed before. I hadn't seen any previews for The Bourne Identity and new nothing about it, which is part of why I loved it so much. These two experiences convinced me to start trying to skip more trailers.
     Let's discuss the alternatives. There's a theatrical trailer for The Bourne Ultimatum that essentially covers the last 20 minutes of the film. I went and saw this movie with my brother, who had seen all the trailers while I had not. At this point in the trailer, a really fun, though fairly inconsequential, twist is revealed. When I was watching the same part of the movie, I was super excited. I turned to Garrett and said "ohmygoshhesintheoffice" and he was annoyed and said "I know." I looked around the theater and no one else was shocked or stunned. They all knew it was coming. What a waste. Same thing happened here. I had no idea that semi was going to flip over in The Dark Knight, and went a little nuts when I saw it.

     It's not easy avoiding trailers of films you plan to see. I am already avoiding a few websites I used to check because they've made it their goal to ruin every plot of the newest Batman film. When I go into theaters I will plug my ears, close my eyes and say "lalalalalalalalala" to myself like my mom used to make me do when people were kissing on TV a couple years ago. I have the remote handy in case a movie I am excited for could be on TV. I've found it to be worth it.
     So, I am working hard to avoid any information about the new Sherlock Holmes, the new Batman and the possibly potentially new Bourne that may or may not have Matt Damon in it. I am also learning to avoid preview for anything Christopher Nolan is involved in, because everything he makes is awesome. Take my advice and avoid movie trailers.

I Got Married Young

     It wasn't super young. I was 21, but that's pretty young by today's standards. It's not like I was 17, or it was a shotgun wedding or anything. And the timing was right. I graduated from college and got married, nothing shocking about that.
     But still, it's young, right? And I don't think there were a lot of people that pegged me for the "marrying" type, by which I mean they thought I was immature. I would like to challenge their ideas of maturity, but that's for another time.
     Some people thought I was rushing in to it. Cara and I dated for 17 days before I told her we were going to get married. We set a date right after I informed her of our impending marriage, and we were married six months later. It was definitely adjustment for the people that knew me.

     For me it comes down to selfishness. From both a personal and religious standpoint, I think all decisions are ultimately judged by how selfish they are.

     I didn't give myself a chance to weigh my options with marriage. I was excited and ready and it was all so fun and so fast, that I never stopped to think "don't I have at least a couple more years of living with my roommates, playing video games, and not having responsibilities in me?" I didn't think about what I was giving up until I had already given it up.
     Well, when the fall and school rolled around again, I started thinking about it. My roommates were still living together, playing video games whenever they wanted to. My friends were all still on the same ultimate team, going to tournaments and having a great time. Was I missing out? I was in Corvallis with no friends, one wife, a student teaching position that wasn't a good fit and nothing to do. I had to analyze my position.
     I knew before I got married that the most important thing in my life was going to be my wife and my family. It would be more important than jobs, money, living location and fun. I don't think this is a culturally common mindset for a young man in college. If I had decided to postpone getting married to keep my independence train rolling, I would have been choosing my own well-being over my wife's, and that's not a healthy thing to do for a future marriage. That plants the seed in her mind that those other things are more important than her (which, had I made those decisions, they would have been), and no good can come of that.

     I am of the opinion, and have been for a long time, that the next stage of life is better than the previous one if you choose to make it that way. There tends to be an idea in society that the college years are as good as it gets. Sex is easy and fun, responsibilities are low, you are mostly free and encouraged to do all kinds of dumb things to get them out of your system and to have good stories to tell. Sure, that's all fine, but I would rather choose not to peak at any point in life, if I can help it.
     What I see happening is guys my age buy into the notion of the college glory days, to some degree. They think about the freedoms and fun they have when they are 21, and they want to be 21 forever. Or at least for as long as they can. America is a great place to have a bill-paying job, a few bars nearby an internet connection and an xbox with four controllers. The temptation to hold on to the golden years of college is so strong, and the ability to do it is so easy, why would someone give that up if they didn't have to? And since all these guys are making these decisions independently together, it's not like the women out there are getting snatched up. Date your girlfriend for a few years and see what happens. This is a selfish line of thought.

     But I don't think people are actually thinking along these lines. Guys aren't saying "there will always be women to marry so I am going to bide my time." I don't think a lot of people think like this at all -- long term, with someone else's interests and well-being at heart, even if they don't know this future someone.
     Either of those two options are selfish, however. Thinking "I can prolong my glory days" and not thinking about one's future, in terms of marriage, are both selfish approaches. You might be thinking "what if someone doesn't want to get married." If someone doesn't want to get married they should think about why.
My guess is, it is for selfish reasons. I guess I haven't taken the time to explain why I think generally selfish decisions are wrong (from a moral standpoint) but I'll deal with that another time. But I can share a common outcome of this train of thought.
     Guy doesn't want to get married, he's having too much fun. Guy keeps having fun for years and years. Soon this fun is less fun than it used to be. Guy tries harder to make it more fun again. Guy starts going bigger. Guy goes to Vegas, guy has reunion parties with college buds, guy keeps seeking fun. Guy is in his 30's wishing he was still 21. Guy might start to have a change of heart. Maybe he meets someone great, maybe he starts thinking about having kids, maybe he "thinks it's time," he and his girlfriend get married (or "take the next step," whatever it may look like), or maybe he thinks its time he start progressing in life. Guy gets married. Guy still wants that fun and freedom he had been clinging to for so long, so guy watches a lot of sports, hangs out with the guys, etc. Guy has kids. Guy is in his high 30's/40's with a wife and kids and a job and feels trapped. Where was the fun? Why did it have to stop? Wife isn't happy, guy isn't happy, divorce happens for any one of a billion reasons.

     Okay, that's painting in extremely broad strokes. It is also me putting my values and interpretations onto other people. I can do that because it is my blog. I don't expect everyone to have my values, and I am not saying that everyone should get married, and should get married today. I am saying that selfish approaches to life and decisions have long term consequences, and I am saying that you have to give up the desires of ultimate freedom, independence and fun to have a healthy marriage.

Versailles, outside Paris

     Again, I didn't have to deal with this when I got married, this desire to hang on to my fun. If I did, I would have made the same choices I did anyways. However, I did have to confront these ideas when Cara started talking seriously about having kids. Like, when she started putting dates on a calendar. I wanted to have kids, I just didn't want to have them right now. Why? Because I was having fun. Cara and I were having fun. We took a lot of vacations, would take random trips to the beach or Portland, we'd go see movies and play games with friends. We were saving money. None of these are bad things. I wanted to hold onto them. Still, I was being selfish.

I figure if I keep posting Wyatt pictures, ladies will keep reading

     Cara wanted children. She wanted to get pregnant before a certain time, for her health, the baby's health and she wanted a baby. I started thinking about my children, and how I wanted to be young and energetic when they were young and energetic, for their sake and mind. Waiting wasn't going to make any of those things better. I had to believe the next stage of life is better than the one I am currently in.
     It took me about two days to realize that the timing was right to have children, and that if I pushed it out I would be being selfish. I don't think two days is very long. I was able to do this quickly because I had already analyzed me thoughts and opinions about selfishness, and the systems of life stages, to know that this was the right choice. Yay for me.

     I got married before all of my friends. I had kids before almost all of them too. These are statements of fact, not boasts or suggestions. I don't think my life is how every life should look, mostly because they can't all be as lucky as I am. That would no longer be called luck but called normal. Don't go and get married because it is the thing to do at this stage in your life, or whatever stage you are in, but start thinking about the choices you are making. If they are selfish, recognize that and change them. It's worth it.

Explaining Inequalities

     I find that most of my students aren't terribly concerned with why things are the way they are in mathematics. I am of the opinion that this is because when students ask why questions when they are young, they don't get answers. If they ask "why is a negative times a negative a positive" they get an answer like "just because," or, if they are home-schooled, "because I said so." I'd like to discuss some of those why topics in math, most of which I don't think are asked that often.

"Why do you switch the inequality when you multiply or divide both sides by a negative number?"

I'm glad you asked. (You're still reading this, right?)

Suppose we have the inequality -2x + 3 < 11. It is solved as follows:

-2x + 3 < 11
        -3   -3                         Subtract 3 from both sides
-2x < 8
-2x  >  8                              Divide both sides by -2 and switch the sign

 -2      -2
x > -4

The solution x > -4 works if you check numbers larger than -4 (like 0).

The inequality, much like the equals sign, is a statement of fact. The inequality 2 > 5 is stating the fact that two is greater than five, and the inequality -2x + 3 < 11 is stating that the left side is less than the right half.

The reason that inequalities switch when you divide by negative is, honestly, because that's just the way it is. Here's what I do with my students:

I put up two numbers and ask which sign goes in-between them.

4          8

and they tell me that a "less than" squeezes in there.

4    <    8

I start doing things to both sides, and check to see if the inequality is still true

4    <    8
+12      +12

16   <   20                   still true, 16 is less than 20, so we subtract 30
-30       -30

-14   <   -10                still true, so we multiply by 5
x5            x5


-70   <   -50                still true, so we divide by 10
/10          /10


-7     <     -5                still true, so we multiply by -1
x(-1)          x(-1)

7       <     5                 this is no longer true. Seven is, in fact, not less than 5. The sign needs to switch.
                                   
The sign didn't need switching with multipling or dividing positive numbers, and it didn't matter if we added or subtracted when positive or negative. It only mattered when we multiplied by a negative number. The same would be true if we divided by a negative number (like negative one).

Another way to describe this is with a number line. I have tried like a trillion ways to create a number line in this space that I can work with, but I am having almost no luck. Here's the best I can do:

-5  <  -3                      but                      5   >  3   

     Imagine having two points on that number line, a point at -3 and a point at -5.

     If we multiply both of those points by -1, we get the new points 3 and 5.

     Well, for -3 to travel to three, it has to travel a total of 6 spaces, but for -5 to get to 5, it has to travel 10 spaces. In that farther distance to travel, the -5 "passes" the -3 and goes from less than to greater than.

That is why the sign switches. Most people don't care. I never had it explained to me, and when I was teaching it one day I thought to myself "why does that happen?" So I went home, figured it out, and started teaching it. I know there are a few students in every class that appreciate seeing that. Hopefully it helps.

I know that no one is still reading this, so I would like to take this opportunity to let the world know that today I wiped my face with a towel that was on the carpet, and my wife told me we had placed that towel under the baby when changing him. Thanks, wife, for waiting until I had finished.

Stuff That Happened To Me Today.

10/24/2011
     I thought the most interesting thing about my day would be that I was forced to use a chalkboard. Usually I have either whiteboards or a document camera and a projector, but today that doc cam wasn't in my room. I had two clean, green chalkboards (not blackboards) in the front and a few sticks of chalk.
     I was stressed out. I had never taught with chalk. I'd used it, but teaching forces me to concentrate on my handwriting, legible-ness and keeping my work level (as in flat). When I first started teaching I'd spend time practicing with whiteboards. I haven't logged those hours with a chalkboard yet, so I wasn't confident I could make my work look nice.
     The chalk was extremely screechy at first. I had to adjust the angle I held it at and... who'm I kidding, you don't care.
     Turns out, it was great! I like the "click click click" sound it makes when I write. I enjoy the fact that I don't get minor highs by standing to close to the board. I think my writing actually looked a lot better. I don't like having chalk on my fingers, but I felt like an old-timey professor. Now I want to get a tweed jacket and a library to put in my house, and debate enthymemes and policies.

     No, the most interesting thing was when a student of mine, at Lane Community College, told me he wrote some jokes about me. I knew before this conversation that he was a professional comedian, so I wasn't too offended. I choose to take this as flattery, and he said he'd record them and send them to me. What!? I can't wait, I am so excited. He asked if he could use my name and I told him if he didn't I'd fail him. I'm funny too!!
     Having a student in your class who is a comedian is interesting. He doesn't crack jokes at all and is really attentive, but I want him to be funny. I also want to try and be a little funnier myself, to just show how similar I am to this big black guy from North Carolina. Today someone said to him "that sounds pretty intense," and from across the room I was this close to shouting "like the circus fire?"

You know, because circus fires are intense.

I'm glad I restrained.


Other stuff: A student got back a test and on the test she had said 11 - 3 = 7. This isn't a big deal to me, it's a minor brain fart that happens all the time (kind of like real farts), and at least two other students had done the exact same thing (I'm a good teacher!!). What was interesting was how she had been looking at the problem for a few minutes and then said out loud, to me, while going over other test problems: "explain to me how eleven minus three isn't seven." I thought she was kidding and chuckled (she has a good sense of humor, meaning she laughs at all my jokes). Then I looked at her and saw she was serious, and said as kindly as I could "eleven minus three is eight. I'm sorry, I honestly thought you were kidding." She blushed, and we agreed from then on to pretend like she had been kidding all along.

I put off grading till the last minute and got it done like 12 seconds before class started. Procrastination at its finest.

I told a woman that, when teaching high school, I always assume that a student's parents are divorced unless I know otherwise. There have been a couple of times I have said "mom and dad," only to learn that it's just mom or just dad. I never liked putting my foot in my mouth like this. Of course, the woman I told this to was a divorced mom. Is that irony?

It's okay though, because a few minutes later she said "The one advice I would give to people is to not get married at 21," and then promptly said, "you weren't married at 21, were you?" Of course, I was. Is that irony? Does anyone know what irony is?

A guy passed me while biking to work. Then I passed him, then he passed me, then I passed him again, and then he passed me again. We weren't racing (at least I wasn't). It was just how we timed the lights and the traffic, and we were going in the same direction for a long time. I wish I knew Yellow Helmet McWhiteBeard a little better after spending so much time in his vicinity.

The Case of the Unyielding Detective

     I read an article a couple of years ago in an airport. I don't remember who wrote it, or who published it. I will not investigate these details. The author of the article (I'm pretty sure she was a woman) claims that Sherlock Holmes is the most enduring character in literary history. What she means is that even to this day, people are still writing stories about him, debating gaps in his known timelines, and retro-fitting him for new generations.
    She's right -- assuming she was a girl -- as far as I can tell. People can't get enough of this guy, or the world he inhabited. Characters that only appear once or twice, or who are referenced a few times, have entire collections of work based on them (like Irene Adler, the closest thing to a "crush" we see Sherlock have, or his nemesis Professor Moriarty who, to my knowledge, only makes a physical appearance once but is discussed in maybe four or five stories). Why is that? I want to explore what makes him so dang appealing, popular, and enduring.

    Let's start with the facts. After all, Sherlock never formed theories without first gathering all of the facts, as it leads to bias. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the first story involving the detective Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet in 1887. It is a simply fantastic read. If you've never read it, or any Sherlock, read A Study in Scarlet. Doyle would write short stories that would appear in a magazine of the time, and publish short novels every couple of years as well.
     The character of Sherlock Holmes is based on a doctor that Doyle (himself a physician) knew. This doctor was known for looking a patient up and down, inspecting some various, innocuous aspects of physical appearance or personal belongings, and then being able to recount where this patient had been and what he or she had been doing with astonishing accuracy. In fact, this doctor was the Queen's favorite doctor solely for this ability. Doyle took this idea and wanted to apply it to detective work, and thus Sherlock was born.

     I think this is part of the key to Holmes's endurance. He's almost possible. He's based on a real doctor, and takes this real doctor's abilities to the extreme through essentially memorizing every possible detail he can about London, and solving all sorts of cases throughout London. These things are within one's grasp, if one wants to pursue them. Sherlock could exist. Superman will never exist. Spider-Man can't exist. Batman and James Bond simply tempt fate and beat the odds too often to be real. The heroes of fiction are grand, but not practically possible. But the heroes of the real world -- which I guess are policemen, firefighters, soldiers and math teachers -- are too real. They're plain and boring and don't swing through cities or save the world daily. They die. Sherlock is right in that sweet spot of making you think, for chapters at a time, that this person could be real.
     But he just couldn't possibly be a real person. Sherlock is simply too smart, too correct and too resourceful to exist. Yet, even as I write those words, I know that nothing that he accomplishes is so extraordinary as to be unbelievable. Even now, I can't decide if he could be a real person or not. He's almost possible. This is a quality that is rare for heroes. We like to identify with our heroes, see ourselves in them in as many ways as we can delude ourselves into believing that, with a little work and luck, I could be just like them. With Sherlock, it's simultaneously possible to identify with him AND to dismiss him that it's easy to obsess over him.
     This is either the genius or the dumb luck of Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes is a fairly inconsistent character. He claims to know nothing of the world outside of his trade (once stating that a) he didn't know that the Earth revolved around the sun, and b) once Watson informs him of this, he will do everything in his power to forget it, as it has no bearing on detective work), yet he will solve cases with observations of the nuances of political processes or familial relations. In one paragraph, Doyle can shock you with how absolutely calloused and self-absorbed Sherlock can be, but two chapters later you forget this when Sherlock analyzes a lover's quarrel for motive or telling bits of evidence. He walks the line of being possible or not possible in almost everything he does.

     I also attribute Holmes's endurance to how hard it is to write a good mystery story. A couple weeks ago I was pondering how hard certain types of characters can be to sell to audiences. Indulge me: If I wanted to make a movie about the richest man in the world, I'd show him with stuff and houses and at parties, and say "this is the richest man in the world." If I wanted to make a movie about the prettiest girl in the world, I'd find a pretty girl and -- in my movie -- make every guy fall for her and want her, put her on covers and in the news, and state over and over "this is the prettiest girl in the world." These two characters wouldn't be hard to sell to an audience.
     If I wanted to make a movie about the funniest guy in the world, I myself would have to be VERY funny. I couldn't have my character crack bad jokes and make the other actors laugh hysterically. The audience would see through it. I couldn't have all the other characters in my movie say "that guy is the funniest guy in the world," because if he was, the audience would already know it by how hard they were laughing. I'd have to be the funniest guy in the world to make that character believable, and if I were that funny I wouldn't make up some character, I'd get my own sitcom. That's a tough character to sell to an audience.
     Well, making Sherlock the smartest man in the world is very hard for the same reasons it'd be hard to make the funniest guy in the world. Additionally, he has to be smart in a way the audience can appreciate, which means he can't be too smart (which is why Doyle had the character Watson record and publish the stories). So Doyle has to make up a mystery, and give this mystery clues that Sherlock will notice but we won't, and then present these clues and evidence in such a convincing manner that we simultaneously think three things: a) that's so brilliant, b) that's so simple, and c) that's the only possible explanation. In reality, when I re-read a Sherlock story, option (c) doesn't hold up. Sherlock will give an explanation of the facts in a way that makes it sound like only his version is possible, but of course that's not the case, how could it be? He's not possible, but he's so damn good.
     Sherlock is extremely smart in a few areas: detective work, chemistry, encylcopedic knowledge of crime and some trivia. He has no bearings of anything else and claims that he's that way intentionally. This is downright fascinating, that a guy as smart as Sherlock is actually so smart that he can only be entertained through puzzles and mysteries of rare and magnificent complexity or simplicity (and he uses heroin and opiates to pass the time inbetween these mysteries. Who is this guy?) He's brilliant enough to make the decision to limit his brilliance to a few areas. What? He's not possible.

     Sir Arthur Conan Doyle didn't know what to do with Holmes. The character grew so big so fast that all people wanted out of him was more mysteries. Those things can't be easy to write. The detail, backstory, evidence to give and to withhold, it had to be stressful. So Doyle killed Sherlock. He killed him in the most unsatsifying, non-committal way possible just to give himself a break (basically said "maybe he fell off this cliff and over a waterfall"). And Doyle took a break from Sherlock for several years, before writing some more stories that took place years after his non-committal, maybe-he's-dead-but-he's-probably-not death. Want to know what this did? This opened the doors (unintentionally, I am sure) for people to write more stories about Sherlock. What did he do in those inbetween years? He claims he was in Africa, but what does that mean? And the whole time? Why stop there? Watson didn't publish EVERY case that Sherlock was involved in. Oftentimes he only alluded to some. Let's publish some more of those stories also.
     Suddenly, its as if Sherlock lives like some comic book character, always getting more stories and plots, sometimes aging and changing and sometimes not, and he's going to live forever. Someone is always going to have one more story to write about this guy. He's the most enduring character in literary history.

     Want proof that Sherlock is an enduring character? House. Doctor Gregory House, his pal Dr Wilson, his superior Dr Cuddy, and his three fellowship lackeys at any given time are all taken straight from Sherlock Holmes. The creator of House even said so, from the beginning. Remember how Sherlock was based on a doctor? Well House is a doctor based on a detective based on a doctor. Wilson is obviously Watson, his only friend and humanizing aspect; Cuddy represents the London police: holding the authority but recognizing their inferiority and need for him. The other three fellowship lackeys exist just so we can experience and understand House's brilliance, arrogance and lack of knowledge in any other settings outside of medicine (and he's addicted to drugs to escape the pain of his existence). Any wonder that show was (is) so incredibly popular and successful for so long? Because House is Sherlock, and people love Sherlock.
     Another example is the TV show Monk. Like House, it is an extremely successful show that won a ton of awards. It was simply Sherlock taken to its logical conclusion: Sherlock was messed up, and needed an outlet. Again, the creators of this show stated from day one that it was essentially Sherlock for San Francisco. (If you haven't watched Monk, it is truly a wonderful show in every sense. Check it out, it's on Netflix Instant).
    I could go all day, but I'll give one more: Batman. Batman is Sherlock Holmes in spandex and with money. Batman actually started in Detective Comics and was supposed to be a crime serial. You probably didn't know that Sherlock was a master fencer, boxer, and knew some martial arts as well. Kind of like Batman. You better believe I have spent a lot of time comparing these two characters and analyzing their similarities. You also better not ask me why, because that would be embarrassing.

   Are Batman, Monk or House possible characters? Could they exist in real life? I seriously don't know. It's brilliant.

    I'll leave with this. There was a BBC series in 2010 called Sherlock that put Sherlock and Watson in modern-day London. It was perfect. Go watch it. It's on Netflix Instant, and can probably be found elsewhere. Three episodes, about 90 minutes each, were made in 2010 and three more are set to come out soon in 2011. Watch them. Additionally, there is another Sherlock movie coming out soon, the sequel to the last one with Robert Downey Junior. I appreciated the first film because it didn't seek to make Holmes old and stuffy. In "real life," Sherlock was athletic, excitable, engrossing and physically imposing. Most importantly he was an absolute master of disguise, employing them in nearly every adventure (just like Batman).
     There is so much great Sherlock Holmes out there for you to consume. Check it out. He makes you smarter. He makes you want to be a better person at whatever it is you do. He is dangerous in the way he thinks and approaches life. I just don't know if he's possible.

     

Systems -- Part I

This is Part I of a two-part post on God's use of systems in our world. Part I focuses on science, Part II on how it effects my personal theology. If you want to read Part II, click these magic words (or scroll down, possibly). If you want to see an absurdly cool picture, click those blue words.

   Most of my theology is formed by CS Lewis. Well, pretty much all of it that isn't explicitly clarified in the Bible is formed by CS Lewis. I'm in the process of reading That Hideous Strength, which I have found extremely boring, but assume the 120 pages spent watching some guy waffle on his job has some great meaning in the long run.

     In The Magician's Nephew, the sixth book in The Chronicles of Narnia no matter what chronological order they come in, Aslan is on a completely barren planet. He walks along this planet, slowly, roaring. He doesn't take a breath. The constant roar grows louder and louder as he walks closer to the two children, horse and carriage driver, and queen that are watching on this planet they've stranded themselves on. As he is roaring, plants start to grow, streams start to flow, animals begin to frolic, and the evil queen throws a metal pipe at Aslan. This pipe hits him in the forehead, falls to the ground, and immediately grows into a working lamppost from our time and world. Aslan continues on, roaring without any pause.

     Systems. Don't you get it? It's all about systems, you see.

     Now I'm going from memory here, and I haven't read this part of this book since middle school, so show a little grace: The carriage driver, while talking to Aslan, wants to return to his home and bring all sorts of things to "plant" into this new world. He'll grow shoes and hats and, I dunno, have a literal money tree, and he can't wait. Aslan clearly states that the magic of life and growth happening on the planet won't last forever, only at this moment of creation. Once that time passes, things will be born, live, grow and die like they do in our world right now.

      Aslan essentially creates a new world, sets up some systems, gives them a headstart and says "go" to Narnia, and it takes off. That's how our world is too. It's a whole bunch of systems that are in motion, but once had a beginning.

     "Science is man attempting to figure how God does what He does." -Grant Gilchrist

     One of my goals is to be one of those people who just gets quoted to prove points. Like Henry David Thoreau, whoever that is. I'd love to appear on a cross stitch or some throw pillows. But that brilliant quote above is honestly how I view science: getting evidence of whatever the heck happened or is happening. The Bible says God spoke and the universe came into existence. Sure, I have no problem with that. But there's got to be some residue left lying around that explains what was really going on. Scientists find that residue and come up with a Big Bang theory, that is really very elegant, simple, and completely absurd, except for the fact that God simply speaking something into existence sort of sounds like a giant explosion occurring in the middle of literally nowhere. Like, non-existence into existence.

     There's a crapload of animals in the world. Did they all come about through evolution? I doubt it. Evolution is a beautiful theory that has some gaping holes when you look at it in the extremely BIG picture (can it result in all life from a single-celled organism? Maybe, but not without the help of some all-powerful being) and the extremely small picture (the argument of irreducible complexity, which again can be glossed over with the notion of some Godly assistance). Did all dogs evolve from one original dog? I think so. That's pretty much what the story of Noah's Ark is asserting. Did one of those dogs evolve into the dolphin, like I learned in The Voyage of the Mimi in 5th grade? I don't think so. I'll probably explore this some other time. I think the system of "evolution" was set up that lets animals and plants adapt to each other, and it got a head start at creation.

     God had this experiment in mind He wanted to run. The human experiment. He lets all these planetary bodies and stars form and group up. One planet in particular he wants to put life on, and there's all sorts of systems on this planet. Convection in the mantle leads to currents in the ocean and shifting tectonic plates. Heat from the sun leads to pressure systems and more currents in the ocean. Pressure systems and currents in the ocean lead to a water cycle and weather patterns. The planets are all rotating about a star, leading to seasons. A moon orbits a planet, making tides. These tides and water cycles make it easy for the evolution of plants and animals to occur. God basically sets up an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine and watches it unfold. (Ha! You thought I was going to link this one, didn't you! You don't know me!)

     It's this belief that lets me be an intelligent Christian. Is the universe billions of years old? I don't care! It might be, or it might just look that way because when Aslan was first roaring about, things grew faster than they do now. Did we evolve from monkeys? I don't think we did, but if we did, okay. Neither of these ideas refute the existence of God or my beliefs in the Bible, they are simply a way for us try to understand what's going on around us at a factual level. They don't have to be conflicting, as everyone wants to make them.
    All this leads me to believe that the more we learn about the world around us - science -  the more we are learning about God. And God LOVES being learned about. It's pretty much why we are here. But it leads me to some other conclusions as well.
     IF the world really is just a bunch of systems that God put in place, there is one thing that is constantly governing these systems: mathematics. There are rules and laws being followed, and we are able to understand and track these rules through mathematics, which leads us to physics, which then leads us to chemistry and then biology. We start analyzing our purely mathematical world (a result of a purely mathematical God) and things start to make sense. What appears the most? Probability. It's probability that is governing our world. That's the system God has in place. He rolls the dice and watches to see what nature's going to do.
     So when an earthquake happens, or a tsunami or a hurricane, I am of the opinion these are not acts of God in the sense that He is in Heaven saying "now!" These are acts of God in the sense that He put all of this in motion. So hurricane Katrina wasn't meant to punish a town that has gay people in it, it was simply the result of some high and low pressure systems mixing in a way that is very common for that area.
     I have no recollection of anything "normal" happening in the Bible, nature-wise, and it being attributed to a miracle. Battles weren't won because people prayed and an earthquake swallowed the Philistines. Sure, there was a flood that featured more water than the earth has today, a river was stopped, a sea was parted, fire fell from heaven a few times, people went blind, one time a jacket was wet and one time it wasn't, but God never was like "Here's a rainstorm!! Use it!!" Those normal things are just part of the system. Anything fortuitous about the timing of an event was simply based on the probabilities of it happening and it being advantageous at the same time. People love to say "The Lord moves in mysterious ways," which He certainly does, but I think He mostly moves through probability.

Systems -- Part II

This is Part II of a two-part post on God's use of systems in our world. Part I was about the scientific aspects of these systems, while Part II will focus on the results of these systems in my theology. If you want to read Part I, click that blue text (or maybe just scroll up). If you want to meet every Zelda fan's dream girl, click that other blue text.




     There's a theory that if we were able to gather and interpret enough data, we could predict EVERYTHING. The way molecules bounce in the air, how water would flow, how plants would grow, how animals would respond -- everything natural could be predicted with enough knowledge. Some even think human behavior could be anticipated.
     Well -- and this is where I start to reach a bit -- God has that kind of knowledge. He both knows the systems entirely, and has all the data of how things are moving and how they are going to react and interract. I'm starting to wonder if God doesn't necessarily see the future (which of course He can), but that He can "predict" it because He just knows what's going on within His systems completely.
     He didn't make a single prophecy/promise until after the fall. When Adam and Eve ate that fruit, God let the dust settle and then starts to explain what's going to happen, bit by bit. It's going to rain a lot for a while. I'm going to pick a family and start to show how this is going to work. You're going to periodically and predictably get pissed or get stupid and screw things up. I'm going to have to bail you out a bunch of times. Those ones are easy. But when he starts to get real specific, with things like this guy is going to be king for a while and then this country is going to overtake them and then this country will rise up and hey I'm here in human form!! I don't think He's looking into the future, watching what's happening, and then coming back to some prophets and giving them visions. I think He has absolutely all the possible information about what's going on right now, and with that information can tell what we're going to do in the future. He's got these systems that He fully understands.
     I do the same thing, on a much smaller scale. I've already blogged (weird word) about how I try to predict conversations before they happen. I'm good at this. I am good at it because I understand the systems of conversation and I have knowledge of the people I will be talking with. It's nothing phenomenal, it's mostly neurotic. But I can do it. Why couldn't God do that on a grander scale?
     This is why I don't take issue with the notion of pre-destination (it always comes to this, doesn't it?). People feel that because God knows what we are going to do before we do it, we don't really have any choice in what we do. I'd argue that I often know what someone is going to say before they say something, but I am not making them say it. Sometimes I am manipulating conversation in certain ways, but I can't crawl into my dad's head and force him to ask me about that Mariner game I went to, I just know that he is going to.
     I like to give this example to explain my thinking on the subject: Think about a delivery man. Depending on how much information I have, I can predict how his day is going to look. If all I know that he is going to deliver some packages, I can't say too much. But if I know he has to deliver a dozen packages between 9:00am and 5:00pm, I can get an idea. Further more, if I know where those packages need to be delivered, I can start to get an idea of the routes he might take. If I know what traffic is like, and if I know the patterns the driver tends to follow when planning his routes, and if I know when he takes lunch, I can guess what his route will be with much more accuracy.
    If I know when he arrives at work, what he does when he arrives at work, when he gets in his car, what speed he tends to drive at, the timing of the traffic lights, the patterns of congestion in the roads, when and where and what he likes to do for lunch, how long he chats with customers, if the customers are home, and if his car is gassed and maintained, I could be extremely accurate with the route my delivery man is taking, all while having ABSOLUTELY no control over what he is actually doing. Systems. If I can do this (and really, it's not that unreasonable, you probably do it with your family or friends all the time because you know them), of course God can do this with anything and everything, while still letting us choose.
     This leads to one somewhat tangential conclusion that I'll mention real briefly. In the Gospels, something to the effect of "because Jesus knew the hearts of men" is stated several times, and everyone seems to think He is reading people's minds with His supernatural powers. Maybe He is. But, really, knowing that the Pharisees are plotting to kill Him doesn't require a great logical leap. I think He knows the system of the hearts of men. He simply can tell what they are thinking or what they want to do or are saying because people aren't that hard to figure out. It's very possible that Jesus can't read minds, seeing as how He had to give up a lot of his God-ness when He joined us on Earth. It's also very possible that He can. I don't know, and truthfully I don't think it matters, but I find it interesting.

     Now, I am no Biblical scholar. And for all I know there are verses that explicitly state "God has seen the future and is telling us what will happen (but I'm pretty sure they say he "knows" the future, which is different and leaves room for my interpretation). It might say somewhere "Jesus totally read that dude's mind," but it's probably phrased more elegantly. If I've blasphemed anything, it is due to laziness and poor information, not by intention.
     But, systems, man, we gotta be aware of these systems.

When Jason Bourne saved James Bond (and all action movies)

      My town has a magical, wonderful place that is rare in other towns. It's a big reason I would have a tough time moving. There are several places that tie me to Eugene, but the main one is the $1.50 movie theater. With a little patience (2 weeks for Norbit, 5 months for Shrek) you can watch all the world's movies on the big screen and save a ton of money. The seats are broken, the previews are confusingly belated, the popcorn costs more than the movie, and the theater is getting shabby, but none of that matters when on Wednesday afternoons you can pay 50 cents to see a movie like it's 1960 again (50 cents!!).

      One night in high school I was bored. I grabbed a friend and we went to see a movie I new very little about, but was highly recommended. The Bourne Identity. I hadn't seen a preview, didn't know the characters, and had my life changed. As the credits rolled, I sat and stared. What was that? It was different. It was clean, there weren't a lot of explosions, there weren't any cheesy dialogue or one-liners, it moved fast and I never stopped to catch my breath. Why isn't every movie like this? I watched the credits without really registering that the movie was over.

      In 2002, three of the biggest spy heroes in literary fiction had films: Pierce Brosnan's curtain call as James Bond in Die Another Day, Ben Affleck's only shot at Jack Ryan in The Sum of All Fears, and Matt Damon as mostly unknown Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity. (What is with those "J" names? Throw in Jack Bauer and Jack Sparrow and there's a trend that needs exploring. For another time). Both Bourne and Sum of all Fears weren't huge hits in the US, splitting 58 million on their opening weekends, but Bourne had huge international numbers and did extremely well with rentals and DVD sales (remember rentals?). Bond, for its part earned 47 million its opening weekend and 431 million worldwide.
      But something was different. Throngs of people saw Die Another Day, but came away from it pretty sick of cheesy one-liners, formulaic plots and absurd heroics. In my opinion, the gritty realism, speed, and wit of Bourne exposed the Bond movies for their recent laziness. The pause button was hit on the Bond franchise. Most every Bond film came out roughly two years after the previous one, but after Brosnan there was a four year hiatus, and the new Bond was fundamentally different. Casino Royale was fresh. James Bond was human. There were no bombs with countdown timers, last second gunshots, or villians/henchmen with metal teeth. The movie was downright believable, and wonderful.
     Let me get specific. The Bourne Identity has one explosion in it. Jason steps outside, knows something is wrong, and shoots a conveniently-placed tank of something explosive with a shotgun. Believable? Maybe. But you can't go 15 minutes in a 90's action flick without seeing something explode. Bourne features several car-chases without a single explosion. Not one. Cars get hit and glass breaks, no eruptions. People shoot cars and tires blow, no fireballs. It's realistic. To my recollection, Casino Royale has two explosions in it. One at the very end of an absolutely thrilling opening chase scene (just watch it because you want to), when he shoots a conveniently-placed tank of something explosive. The other is when he blows up that fuel truck headed towards the big jet.
     Die Another Day started like this and ends sort of like this (although it doesn't start in one language and end in another like those clips do, at least I don't think it does). I'm not saying it's not entertaining, I'm saying that a movie formula that grossed $431 million dollars in one film had significant, fundamental changes. I think those changes are due to Jason Bourne, and we are all the better for it. I think Jason Bourne saved James Bond.

     Bourne influenced action films beyond James Bond, of course. There were technical adjustments to how action films were shot. Several tropes of action films were challenged by The Bourne Identity that lead to lasting changes. An example is how fight scenes were shot. It used to be that hand-to-hand fight scenes featured swirling cameras, rapidly changing film angles, bad sound effects and the impression of exciting action. The Matrix was the first movie to fix the camera in one spot and trust the actors, choreography and special effects to really sell the fighting (along with movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), but didn't pretend to take place in reality.
     Bourne took the fixed camera position idea and warped it a bit. The footage speed is increased and bits and pieces are removed to make things look incredibly fast, but the viewer has a very complete idea of what is happening. This was new in Identity. It's not anymore. (Unfortunately, it also introduced the "shaky-camera" view of action, which is everyone's biggest gripe with the series).
    Additionally, the music you hear throughout the background of the entirety of all the Bourne films has become standard fare for "something sneaky is going on" in pretty much every movie and television show since. I believe The Bourne Identity redifined the spy/thriller genre for the better.
      For one blatantly obvious example of this influence, we loot at The Bourne Supremacy (2004). One of the most surprising, breathtaking car crashes I've seen happens at 0:54 into this clip. Another thriller, Vantage Point (2008), had the exact same thing happen at 2:02 in this clip. Vantage Point as a whole was essentially a poor man's attempt at Bourne-like speed, complexity and action, and it failed.

     I my opinion there are three nearly-perfect, genre-defining movies when talking about action flicks. Raiders of the Lost Ark, which set the bar for the action-adventure and included this scene. Die Hard, which was the ideal man-against-all-odds action flick; and The Bourne Identity, the gripping, realistic action/spy thriller (I should probably include Back to the Future, but I'm not sure if there is a "time machine" genre. And I suppose I should also include The Fugitive since I am basically listing movies I love at this point).
      Unfortunately, most directors can't make movies like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and Raiders spawned three decades of bad imitations. Additionally, as much as I love Die Hard, it features an explosion of C4 on the ground level of a building that results in no structural damage, a tank driving up to a building, stopping and getting shot by a shoulder-launched missile AND the most poorly thought out rage attack imaginable by a guy who was hung to death half-an-hour earlier (sorry, I tried hard to find that scene and can't, I hope this one makes up for it). My point: Die Hard is essentially the perfect bad action movie. Smart, funny, and simple, it has all the cliches of every Schwarzenegger/Stallone/cast-of-The-Expendables but you don't realize it at the time (Did you know they're making an Expendables 2? I'll stop with the parenthetical thoughts eventually).
     In the same way that Raiders and Die Hard defined a genre and were mimicked for their successes, the same thing is happening with The Bourne Identity. Many similar movies have followed, or at least movies trying to be heavier on plot and lighter on 'splosions. Some of these are pretty fun (The Recruit) and some of these disappointments, like Vantage Point. I'll take the good with the bad.

     Hopefully, we have a bit more of the good coming soon.

Mathematical Equality

I feel like the meaning of the equals sign is misunderstood by students everywhere. Each year, I start every math class the same way. I draw an equals sign on the board and ask students what it means. Sometimes I get the response I am looking for (it means the two sides are the same), and sometimes students tell me that the equals sign separates the “problem” from the “answer.”

                See, we go into kindergarten and are given a bunch of worksheets that have problems like “2 + 3 = _____” and most of us put a 5 in the blank. “Two plus three equals blank” conditions us to think that the left side of the equals sign is the problem, the right side is the answer, and the equals sign just separates the two of them. Problem = Answer. Really, the equals sign is stating that two plus three is the same as five. We use that blank space to represent the notion of an unknown, as if we were saying 2 + 3 = x and then x = 5.

                This misconception leads to some common errors when solving equations, like 3x + 5 = 17.

   3x + 5 = 17

= 3x + 5 - 5 = 17 - 5

= 3x = 12

= 3x/3 = 12/3

= x = 4

The above work states that every first expression is the same as all the following expressions: 3x + 5 = 17 = 3x + 5 + (-5) = 17+ (-5) = …  At some point there is a statement that 17 = 12 = 4, which of course is not true. This stems from the fact that students view the equals sign as the bridge from the beginning of the problem to the end, not a statement of fact. (Instead, when solving, all four of those equals signs on the left end of the solution should be removed. There’s no “bridge” between the equations, each line simply represents independent statements).

                There are other issues I've found with the notion that the equals signs splits up the problem and the answer. Students who are able to solve 5x + 8 = 23 struggle to solve 23 = 5x + 8. Or, when solving the equation 9x + 5 = 17x - 4, students will subtract the 17x from both sides so that the x's are on the left side, even though I think subtracting the 9x is much easier. 

                I’ve found that clarifying this fact early in a classroom pays dividends long term. It makes the steps involved in solving equations more logical, it allows students to understand the relationship between inputs and outputs in function notation, and, most importantly, it gets students to think about the mathematical statements they are making while writing their work. These are all little things that make life easier in the long run, for them and for me.

                I wasn't great at math when I was in school. I was never told, explicitly, what the equals sign meant, and I would put the equals sign in-between every line when solving equations, like I did above. The first math class I took in college corrected that mistake, and I felt foolish. However, when it was clarified to me, other things began to fall into place as well. I hope to do that for my students a bit earlier.

Life Lessons

                There are life lessons I would try to impart with my high schools students when I had a classroom. Lessons like: go to college, don’t major in English or History unless you either absolutely love it or want to be a teacher, save your money, and don’t get into credit card debt. Teaching math is very challenging and very important, and opportunities to share these sorts of lessons don’t always come up naturally.

                I currently don’t have a high school class. I teach math at Lane Community College, where I would feel a bit odd sharing a lot of the above lessons to adults, many of whom are older than myself, and I substitute teach about twice a week. Tomorrow, if I get the opportunity I am going to share one of my favorite life lessons with my classes at South Eugene High School. I want to see what it’s like for a sub to do more than just hand out a worksheet and take attendance. When I had my own classroom, I had about 120ish students. What if I didn’t have to limit my personal ideals to just the 120ish students I had in a given year? What if I am able to reach more students while subbing? This is a new and exciting thought for me.

                I’ll give you the gist of the lesson, if you are curious (if not, you might as well go to some more entertaining website I suppose). It’s about the balance of freedom and responsibility in our lives. I feel that having more freedom requires one take more responsibility, which might be a new, possibly illogical thought for a 15-year-old, and when freedom and responsibility aren’t balanced there tend to be consequences.

hours-old Wyatt

                When we are born, we have absolutely no responsibilities, whatsoever. And when we are born, we have absolutely no freedom, either. We can’t do anything but cry. It’s a struggle to move our head, we can’t get food for ourselves unless a nipple is in reach, and we certainly can’t go anywhere. No responsibilities (sweet), no freedom (lame).

                When we are very young, we have very few responsibilities (clean your room, eat your vegetables) and just a bit more freedom (physically able to do simple things, freedom to play in most rooms of the house or designated parts of the neighborhood). A bit of responsibility and a bit of freedom, more or less in balance.

                The responsibilities and the freedom continue to grow together for a long time, and a few significant jumps occur. Maybe you get a car, or have your choice of classes in school (or a free period). When those freedoms start to occur, ideally responsibilities come with them. Get yourself to school on time, get a job to pay for gas, maintain a certain GPA or get into college. Still, this balance between freedom and responsibility remains.

                What happens to young men and women, from about age 15 to 25 (maybe 35 these days), in my opinion, is they will often try to keep increasing their freedoms without gaining the appropriate responsibilities. Get your car and go to parties or the beach. Get your free class and skip a few others. Go to college and go wild with experimentation. These actions, which are glamorized and encouraged throughout almost all media, can have consequences which rarely are mentioned. In 2008, the CDC stated that 1 in 4 American girls has an STD, and there are over a million abortions per year in the US, to cite two examples for women. For men, this pursuit of freedom without responsibility has led to less men in college (women outnumber them for the first time), men earning comparatively less than women and possessing fewer jobs than women ten years ago. (I compare men’s jobs to women’s jobs, because obviously men would make less and have fewer jobs now than 10 years ago due to recessions and high unemployment, but in that same time span women are still gaining.)

                I tell my students that I had had my most freedom when I had a full-time job and a full-time marriage: I had enough money to have a place to live, food to eat and a car to drive. When I wanted to go to the beach, I had a friend to go with and didn’t need to ask anyone. I can afford the video games I want and the food I like. They usually counter by saying “it seems like money is the key to freedom.” Well of course it is, at least in the ways I listed above, but you need a job to get money. At least, I did, and most of them do too.

Doesn't look like I've had much freedom lately, does it

                Now, here’s where my theory breaks down, and I used to tell my students this hypothetically, and now I can do it factually: Having a kid gives you much more responsibility and much less freedom. They no longer balance. That’s okay though, because I am happy with the other benefits and joys the new responsibility brings that aren’t freedom.

                So, we’ll see if I can spit this out tomorrow. I am subbing for a teacher I have already subbed for this year, so the students know me a bit. I expect to be mostly ignored or snickered at, but I am used to those things as a math teacher. 

The End of Gag Gifts

      Two friends of mine were throwing a Roaring Twenties themed party, for their nearly-shared birthdays. These two fellas are very well dressed themselves. Both have been baristas at Starbucks, and I mean the sexy, charming, girls-come-get-coffee-to-see them types (when you picture these types of people, try and make me less gay sounding at the same time). So really, this was more of a "Dress To My Standards" party than a "Roaring 20's" party. There's no way I would be able to pull off an outfit on my own. Pretty much everything I know about the 20's can be summed up in this clip, and I'm not really even sure if the movie Newsies took place in the 20's (but Batman's in it!!).
       I had an idea about dressing up like a baseball player, because I feel like baggy cotton jerseys fit the era, and it would let me wear my Detroit Tigers hat. But a couple of ideas fell through, so I headed to Goodwill right before the party hoping to score a straight tie, suspenders, and a newsie cap if all went well. I ended up with just the suspenders and Tigers hat (read: I failed).

      While in line at Goodwill, there was a bin full of the cups pictured, advertised "5 for $0.99." It would actually have cost more if I were to buy one mug than five. I found a lot of fitting irony taking place: While I was utterly failing at looking classy for my classy friends' birthday party, here was the epitome of an unclassy way to celebrate someone's birthday. The 20's were elegant and understated, these mugs picture a porcelain derriere and censored the word "ass" with different keystrokes. Additionally, my friends weren't turning 50!! That's crazy! I'd never be friends with someone that old. The layers of hilarity were adding up.
     Then I made a mature decision. I figured, why buy the mugs, give them to my friends, enjoy maybe eight seconds of awkward humor and leave them with a piece of crap, when I could just take a picture of the mugs and accomplish the same thing? So I did. They don't have to throw the gifts away in a couple of weeks, I don't have to have my taste further questioned, and no one profited off of those abominations.
      So can we all agree? There's no more need to give gag gifts. If something looks funny, grab your phone and take a picture. If something acts or sounds funny, grab your phone and record a video. Beyond that, there's no reason to make the purchase (unless it's from The Onion, but even those gags you fill with actual gifts.

Well, I used to do a lot of modeling

                “Doesn’t it look like Grant’s thinking really hard when he talks to girls?”

                One guy, a junior, said that while in the car. Our friend, a senior, immediately agreed and they laughed hysterically. I was a freshman and I was momentarily mortified. We were about two minutes from a party that would have more than a couple ladies present. I knew they were right – I did think too hard when talking to girls. I laughed with my friends and decided to make it my goal to not overthink my coed conversations that evening.

                I think I succeeded that night. But I definitely decided to work at it. When your dad is a pastor at a big church, you get used to people knowing you. Today, I am very good at having a conversation with a person I don’t know: someone who knows anecdotal stories about me heard in church, maybe who has seen me grow up to some extent, and someone who knows my name and I should know theirs. I am good in this situation, but my mom is great and my sister is absolutely fantastic. I assume they are naturals. I developed strategies.

                I would anticipate conversations or questions that might come my way (usually based on some joke dad told from the pulpit). I would make no attempt to discuss anyone we might know in common (for fear of a missed degree of separation). I wouldn’t introduce people I was with (for fear of getting a name wrong), and I tried to have a stable of jokes or responses for common issues or questions.

               

                “Well, I do a lot of modeling.”

                Why on earth did it take me so long to come up with that one? I've seen Zoolander like 20 times!! I was subbing in a geometry class and a student was convinced she’d seen me somewhere before. This is something that comes up often (not necessarily with me, but in general). I tried to give a couple places I could be known from (church, previously teaching at South Eugene, etc.). When this student wouldn’t give it up, I finally said “Well, I do a lot of modeling.” It was perfect. I am using it from now on. You can feel free to use it too. And even better: when I told the class I do a lot of modeling, another girl laughed very hard, but in a snorty there’s-no-way-you’re-a-model-you-nerd sort of way. No one else really laughed except for her. I stood in front of her and asked her why it was so funny. “That’s not a nice thing to do to someone. What if you told me you were entering a beauty pageant and I laughed? How would that make you feel?” I went on for a bit longer, but then let it rest.

Point of this story: I still think too hard about talking to people, I just don’t do it when people can see me anymore.