my holiday

the thought crossed my mind a few days ago, that this holiday coming up is not just a hassle of family get-togethers and trying to call it a vacation from work. it is the holiday of this blog, my holiday, a day to give thanks and well up as much gratitude as i can. i was feeling a bit low on that a week or two ago, so it feels good to have it coming back.

i am thankful for my husband, who not only supports my rearrangement of the house, but adds more ideas to it so that it will work even better. i am thankful for my sister who, in going through her own discouraging time at work, reminds me that i am not the only one who feels how i do about my job. and that is just today.

i was shaken the other day, when my husband described the past few months as the happiest time in his life. i was shaken because i could not say the same for myself. i could not muster up enough gratitude for what i currently have to be completely happy. i got to thinking of what the happiest time in my life would be, and what was the worst. instead i slowly realized that i always seem to have very happy and sad times no matter what my situation. and i guess that's pretty good. for now, i will be thankful for that.

unclutter time

i've been thinking about my packrat problem recently, then i saw this post today. i guess it is time to get started. in some ways, i have been helping my husband do this in the kitchen already. and we are planning a major rearrangement of the house, so a good decluttering first would make things easier. it has helped that we live in a tiny house, so there is a manageable amount of stuff. the targets will be my office (to be converted to the dining room, which i think will actually help me work there more) and the shelves of papers and other junk from college. it would be nice to have more storage space in the basement and that's the only way to get it.

dance

i have been feeling increasingly frustrated at work and at home. i think part of it is that i haven't gotten to dance recently. over the past year, my husband has gotten his dream motorcycle, his dream camera, but he doesn't seem to understand that what i wish for can't be bought. i watched a video this evening titled "dances of ecstasy" and it reminded me of how important dance is to connecting with my soul. a connection that feels quite weak lately. there was a quote that went something like - dance is gratitude, saying thank you for existence.

part of me feels i need to do more of that, to do it right now. the other part of me is very tired and wants to go to bed. i think the second part is winning for now.

my dream

okay, so the above link is not my dream, but perhaps my closest competition.

from the beginning. lately i have been feeling frustrated at work - what i do everyday is not my dream, it is not my passion, much of the time i don't even feel all that effective. i had a dream a few nights ago that i went back to work at the physics teaching labs. that is the part time job i had while i was in college. the one that i resigned from at the end of every school year and went back to every fall. i loved it. i loved the hands on experimentation. i loved the high tech and the low tech. i loved the retro equipment we had access to. i even loved the monotony of setting the equipment up, taking it down, repairing, constructing numerous copies. i loved teaching through objects.

so this got me to thinking, what is my passion now? what would i do if i found out i only had a few weeks or months to live? certainly not my current job. i thought back to my dream of creating a textbook (or similar) that taught algebra to visual and tactile learners. the abstraction of algebra reveals a magic in numbers. i have met far too many friends who have missed this, are plenty smart, but never "clicked" with their algebra teacher. i have an opportunity to explain a concept to them, finally they understand it, and it stokes my desire to show them the whole picture.

but why the particular link above? my vision of this book is a small, pocket edition. i have several science books of the scale i imagine inherited from my parents; i used to have the college algebra and calculus texts as well, but left them in africa as a resource for the next teacher. they were published by W.A. Benjamin publishers in the 1960's. that company was taken over by the publisher of the above book. i don't know if the above book teaches in the way i imagine, it might, based on the title, but the price and size are far above what i want. there is something about the scale of math and science books of yesteryear that i admire, a density and clarity to the text, concise and to the point.

there is some glimmer of what i imagine in the singapore math textbooks. every problem has a graphic solution. i would like to see how they transition this to algebra, but i am having trouble finding what i am looking for.

i also have inspiration in many of the wooden books, and in the works of Tufte. perhaps someday i can get these pieces to come together.

writing this reminded me of the stories of teaching calculus to 6 year olds. i looked it up (it turned out it was 7 year olds), but the content was inspiring (www.mathman.biz). this is the direction i want to go, but with the emphasis on algebra rather than calculus. this is a set of materials that feels worth ordering. hopefully it is as inspiring when it arrives.

little hands

i followed this link because of my interest in sign language and desire to use it with my children when they are young. well i watched the whole thing because i was impressed by the expressiveness of the voiceover.

musical timewarp

on several occasions i have found myself following link after related link on youtube following historical records of artists i know now, mesmerized by how they are at once so very different from how i know them now and at the same time i can see the essence of what they will become.i find myself searching to trace the transition to the present.  other times i run into artists i have never known but wish i had. 

the example linked above is an early genesis video with both peter gabriel and phil collins. both look so young! the music is really out there and i can only imagine how it made sense in the context of the seventies.

other interesting and similar threads to search include: steve winwood, ray charles, eric clapton, stevie wonder, eric burdon, alan price, james hunter, glenn miller, gene krupa

mechanical calculators and analog electronics

i just heard about this beautiful mechanical calculator and it kindled the spark inside me. i connected that with the news on the radio this morning about television going digital. i have always loved the power of analog electronics which i think are not appreciated enough these days in the rush to go digital. i was amazed in college to learn of the complexity of calculations that can be constructed using analog electronics, so that the system acts out the solution instead of having to take the time to calculate it. i also fear that my children will miss the magic of taking a few simple pieces of wire and electronics to capture the invisible radio waves around them. having those signals digital makes them less directly accessible.

putting both of these things together makes me believe that perhaps i am reincarnated from some early 20th century amateur scientist (tinkerer). perhaps that helps to explain my love of dances from that era too.

amateur scientist

hmm.. i listened to this talk and it really made me appreciate my experience growing up. i did fiddle with things, do thing hands-on, and hence the questions were not difficult for me. i am surprised that they are difficult for other scientists. similarly class and another comment i heard today have gotten me thinking about skills that have been lost over the last century. ones that are recorded in my boy scout handbook, old cookbooks, and similar resources.

watch all the way through the ad at the end, an interesting idea about how the culture will change once we can take the internet with us. i hope it turns out as positive as they make it seem.

go back to the beginning

okay so maybe not the beginning (the line from princess bride still echoes in my head), since i really didn't do too much latex until grad school, but it feels like going back to something essential that i love.

also, the little animations in the left margin of each page showing elegant geometric proofs just fascinate me

business creativity

i sometimes feel a conflict between my work and my artistic side. the linked article addresses some of that dilemma and is sympathetic to my struggles.

right brain left brain

at church this morning, the sermon was based heavily on this ted talk

it made me think how one of my motivations for starting this blog was to capture those things in life that had inspired me, and i guess i had been having the urge to get them all written down before i forgot them. the sermon reassured me that most things that have inspired me will come around again, so i don't need to worry about recording the mountain of experiences in the past, but rather can focus on the present.

the topic of the sermon was the spirituality of the right and left brain. to me it echoed the title i chose for my blog - the left side, organized, making goals for the future and full of worry, the right side, full of amazement, interconnectedness, gratitude.

the speaker described how music allowed him to focus on thinking with his right brain; his description reminded me of my own thoughts while dancing. for sure there will be more on dancing later

equilibrium

so I run into a cool set of physics tricks that I would love to try with my kid in the future

varied interests

i have so many thoughts of things to include in this blog, the first post will be a brain dump, and then hopefully as i dig into each of these topics, it will become a place to record my findings

topics may or may not include:

financial tools, socially responsible investing

architecture record exam

history of popular and swing music

chinese

sign language

zen buddhism

interesting videos of many sorts

weight loss

things that make me smile

lindy hop and swing dance

inspiration

meditation

comedy

ruby

ubuntu and LaTeX

various wiki and google misadventures

i will update this list as needed, but for now i will get back to  those things i needed to do in the real world.