civitas

For the past couple months, I have been living in one of the most diverse places on earth: a city.  Of course, some cities are more diverse than others, but I think it a general trend that cities are more diverse than towns or suburbs, especially in "melting pot" places like the US.

This new level of diversity has its ups and downs. I'd like to comment on a few that I have noticed so far.

Behold, an enormous pile of Ethiopian foods.

Benefit: There is a delicious variety of culinary options. I've gotten to eat plenty of foods for the first time, like Ethiopian and Canadian food.  I can easily find food choices from anywhere in the world, either at a restaurant or at a grocery store.  I also have a lot of fun finding a variety of fruits and treats that I don't often find in the suburbs.  Sometimes I go to the store and pick up something that I had no idea even existed (let alone knowing what it actually is) and go home to figure out how to cook it.  Makes for interesting dinners. x) The opportunities to try new things are apparently infinite.

Difficulty: I can't communicate with everyone.  A woman at the store asked me for help the other day in very broken English; mostly pantomime. I think I know what she needed, and I tried to help answer her question.  Because I speak English and Spanish, I'm pretty accustomed to having a way to talk with almost everyone.  I asked if she spoke Spanish and she shook her head and said "Iran".
I thought I would get so much Spanish practice living in a more diverse area, but so far I've instead found more opportunities to speak Hindi, Persian, Tagalog, Mandarin, Korean, Thai, and even German. Unfortunately, I don't know an appreciable amount of any of these languages.

Benefit: There is so much to do here. There are plenty of interesting touristy things that I want to do (but there are too many to do all of them) and then cool places to go that are just part of the normal life. There are tons of big, unique, exciting things to see and do, and I still want to have time to explore the neighborhoods to see the colorful houses and the way people decorate their gardens. I'm caught between trying to experience this place as a tourist and a local! I'm trying to get a good feel of the area, which includes everything from museums and historic sites to hikes and outdoor activities, to amusement parks, to finding a local soccer league, a good jogging route, and the best panadería. I think I'm doing a pretty good job, but there is just so much to explore.

Difficulty: Regardless of the local crime statistics, there is less public trust in cities. If you don't lock your car or home, you are insane. This is generally good practice in the first place, but here, locking the car isn't enough. The standard protocol for leaving the car involves making sure there are no bag-looking or valuable-looking or interesting-looking things in sight at all. If you are leaving anything in your car, move it to the trunk. Then park in a well-lit area. And don't walk around too late at night.
I haven't had any problems with this so far, but I do like being a community where you aren't paranoid about leaving your car for too long and feel like you can trust the universe a little bit more.

Benefit: I'm exposed to a lot of new ideas and perspectives.  Some views that I didn't really understand or appreciate before make more sense as I meet people who hold them and see situations that I hadn't considered before.  In addition to social ideas like why a policy is actually beneficial or getting to know the kinds of people behind a movement, I'm also exposed to all kinds of other ideas: new music, new applications or needs for technology, new languages, new slang, history that I never knew, artwork that I'd never seen, science I hadn't been around before (like why the weather here is the way that it is). I get a better perspective on tons of things and can keep the ideas that I need or like and have a better understanding of ideas that I don't.

Difficulty:  My own ideas get challenged more often.  This isn't inherently a bad thing (indeed, I think it's an important process for everyone to experience as our ideas and values develop) but I'm still testing the waters and learning how to have constructive conversations with people who disagree with me. By simple virtue of living with more people around me, I have to interact with people more often. I've had many exchanges where people are interested and respectful, and I've had some exchanges where that isn't the case.  Being around people who don't understand or challenge my ideas and values gives me more opportunity to consider why I hold those ideas and values in the first place. Sometimes it changes what I think about something, and sometimes it reaffirms it.  These interactions also give me better insight to how to ask about or challenge someone else's ideas respectfully, since I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of an unfriendly challenge.


Overall, one of the biggest things I have noticed from my time living in a city is that it teaches you to learn how to live with other people.  I had figured I was already pretty knowledgeable in this, since I come from a big family and I've been to college and had the gamut of experiences with roommates and neighbors.  I've spent a lot of time living with other people around me. But there's a lot to learn when you go somewhere where there are suddenly more people around you...more weird people, more grumpy people, more kind people, more people whom you can help, more busy people, more noisy people, more happy people, more friendly people...  You're no longer in situations where maybe most of the people had similar values or similar goals as yours, and working together or understanding each other wasn't that hard. But suddenly that isn't there anymore, and you still need to work together to create a good community.

I think one of the big ideas that we really need to grasp for the future is figuring out what kinds of laws and resources and schools and responsibilities and rights and technology we will need so that we can learn to live with more and more people, even people who aren't necessarily like us. In an increasingly globalizing world, this is becoming more and more vital. But more than figuring out the tools we will need to make that happen, we need to figure out what kind of people we should be to make that happen. We need to decide how we're going to treat people, even if they disagree with us or don't speak our language well or even if they offend us.  We need to learn how to listen to people and understand their points of view, and recognize that their perspectives are just as valid as our own.  Turns out people are complex enough that we may never have stuff like this completely figured out, but in the meantime we can always open our hearts and minds a little more to move everyone forward together.

habitus

It's graduation season: the time of year that we release another round of humans into the 'real world' and hope that they don't break anything too quickly.

I know a few people who are graduating from high school this year, and as easy as it is to be cynical about millenials and the rising generation and this whole charade called "growing up"...well, there are plenty of good kids out there.  And having inexperienced, ambitious people running amok pumped up with "achieve your dreams and change the world" does have its perks.

We could say plenty of things about the rising generation, but perhaps more culturally-persistent is this institution called high school that we continue to insist is very important.

There are a lot of criticisms about high school and its associated curriculum.  It doesn't actually prepare students for the 'real world'.  Its benchmark standards are too low.  It creates opportunities for bullying, over-stressing, depression, and so on.  Its underfunded.  Teachers are too tired or don't care or aren't paid enough.  Yet somehow through all these criticisms, it still remains a cultural highlight in many peoples' lives.  Or at least, it certainly appears that way, with the continued success of high school-centered media, the fact that everyone and their parents keep tomes of dusty yearbooks somewhere and refuse to get rid of them, and our persistent alliance to whatever mascot geography happened to assign to us (go wolves!)

I wasn't highly amused by my own ceremonious graduation. High school was one of the least important achievements to me.  As a fellow student pointed out when we were all assigned to write graduation speeches, all that a high school graduation means is that you have followed the law and gone to school for the majority of your life. Thank you, law-abiding citizens.

I've been in the 'real world' for a few years now, and as it turns out, I've actually had to rely on things that I learned in high school a few times.  Yes, diagramming sentences still hasn't come up.  But I'm getting a new perspective on what it means to be educated, what it means to be prepared for life, and what high school can and should actually offer.

Scene change.

I went to a high school choir concert last week and the director had a few of the graduating seniors share things that they had learned throughout their choir career. Comments and quotes were made such as
"If your name is going to be on it, be proud of it."
"On time is late--be early."
"Always look sharp."
"If you want something, ask [the nicer person] first."
and so on. After several quotes, inside jokes, and explanations, the director asked for a comment about music, and the only thing they said was "learn it".

Back to soliloquy.

The choir was obviously a really good choir and their musical abilities were phenomenal.  They won various awards throughout the year and are consistently among the top choirs in their state. Obviously, they've learned music.  They've become impressive musicians and could probably sight read or count rhythms or blend effortlessly.  But come the end of the year, the lessons that stuck out most to them were more attuned to how to live well.  They were based on the relationship they had built with their classmates and director more than any particular musical principle.  They were habits that their teacher had encouraged them to form in order to be successful.

I think that this is where high school is the most valuable.  It helps us form good habits of personal accountability, preparedness, and work ethic. We learn study skills that we can rely on in college, whether our high school classes gave us a good foundation for the course or not.  We have an opportunity to interact with teachers and learn how to work problems out respectfully. We can be involved in clubs and sports and competitions, to learn to cooperate with others and actually produce something that is entirely ours.

I put a lot of academic effort into high school, and most of the facts and theories I learned in high school have stuck with me far better than a lot of what I've studied in college.  I don't use it all every day, but for the most part, I'm really glad that I know things like calculus and how Mexico's government works and what a Scarlet Letter means.

More than the academic value, however, high school has an incredible value in the formation of habits. High school gives you lots of opportunities to choose who you'll be. You make these choices in the classes you take and the activities you do and the people you be with, but you also choose simple habits. There's the routine stuff like getting to class on time and bringing your books and turning in your homework that turns you into someone who is well-prepared. Then there are habits that the life-changing teachers add to the curriculum.  Either by example, or by directly applying it in class, teachers are able to mentor their students in ways that go much deeper than the periodic table and knowing geography.

I don't remember all of my Spanish vocabulary words, but I had a wonderful example of patience and social grace in that class that has helped me in countless situations.
I barely remember anything from dissecting sharks (except the smell), but that science teacher was an example of creativity, and encouraged everyone to do courageous and exhilarating things...just to make sure we're alive.
I definitely do remember how to do polynomial long-division, but I treasure that algebra class because of the vision of unity that teacher had, and how he balanced having fun and getting things done.
I'm sad that I've forgotten the songs from choir, but I learned how to present myself well, how to help others succeed, and made it a habit to stay focused and make the most of work time.
I haven't used enough psychology to remember it well, but being able to accept other people and their ideas while still maintaining my own values is something that I'll keep using for the rest of my life.
I will probably always need to look up the integration of trig functions, but I appreciate the time my calculus teacher took to talk with our class when there were problems, and to help us work through them.

All the other things you need to know in the 'real world'--filing taxes, changing a tire, making an appointment, buying a house, doing CPR, balancing a budget, washing clothes--you might have to learn from another source.  Thank goodness for mothers and the internet.  But the things that will prepare you most for life are the personal habits that you make before you're actually in the 'real world'.

"We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
-Aristotle and friends

to be or not to be

I've been wanting to get around to writing this for way too long now, and I guess the amount of stuff I have to do has finally pushed me to write it.

I have spent a fair amount of thinking--I think perhaps more than most do--about being.  A lot of who we are as individuals seems to be defined by what we do.  We seem to derive a large amount of information from these little facts. I can introduce myself as an engineer, and you will immediately have very different ideas about me than if I were to present myself as a doctor, a photographer, an international travel agent, a nun, a parent, or a clinical parakeet whisperer.  All of these assumptions and how you would then interact with me are defined by so little information as a simplified explanation of what I do.

Of course, in many ways, doing something has a lasting change on how we think and act and see the world.  Our efforts and our experiences can wire our brains and create habits of reacting to the world in certain ways, and for this the simplification of one's occupation can actually be quite informative.  Telling you that I'm an engineer might make you think that I am analytical and precise.  Presenting myself as a writer can give me a more creative flair, while introducing myself as a religious leader might lead you to take me more seriously--or just ignore me entirely.  These occupational identities consistently provide society with a quick judgment on how important they think someone is, what kind of person they might be, and how they plan on interacting with them.

Although there seems to be an incredible amount of importance assigned to this bit of information, it might not be the best drive for decision-making.  These decisions can range from the interactions of an individual with new people, to the expectations that people around them have of them, to the way that they think of themselves.

This system of defining labels for who you are based on what you do has its benefits, but I found a different perspective quite a while ago that gives somewhat of a guide in navigating who to "be" in the future:

"Don't ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, but what problems do they want to solve. This changes the conversation from 'Who do I want to work for?' to 'What do I need to learn to be able to do that?' "

                 -Jaime Casap, Google Global Education Specialist

This problem-solving perspective resonates with me because it really captures the dream of changing the world, at least in some small way.  It also builds the need for the development of life skills rather than just a preparation for an occupation.  And it helps us to look outside of our own problems and see larger systems at work that we can affect in order to do good for ourselves and for others.  That sounds like much more than a career.  It builds on an underlying passion.

One of the most excellent aspects of this approach is that there are many different approaches one can take to solving problems.

From a career-driven perspective, lot of approaches dictate that there is some ideal path to take that will help you become a physician or a journalist or a heliophysicist.  As life usually turns out, though, those paths get interrupted by life, and the fact that people are individuals.  You can ask a lot of people what it took for them to get where they are right now, and it is not uncommon that their story includes an unexpected shift in the path they had put themselves on.  For example, I worked with a nuclear engineer whose undergraduate degree was in history.  Things certainly changed around there.

With a goal of solving problems in mind, it opens up the career path to a broader perspective.  It reverses statements like, "You want to study math? Well, with a math degree, you can become a statistician or an actuary or work with the census or teach or convert to engineering..." to statements like, "You want to solve energy problems?  Well you can do that through research and development or public policy or by starting an energy business... either way, you'll definitely want to understand some chemistry and physics, a bit of math, you'll need to know how to write, and you should understand how to process demographic information..."

There is still a lot of practical value to career paths and having resources like that to help navigate the questions of planning for the future and figuring out what to do.  But with regard to figuring out what to do, I think it holds a lot more promise when we ask ourselves what we want to be involved in and where we want to help, rather than simply what we want to be.

differo [delay]

Welcome again to the realm of procrastination. Don't worry if you're reading this instead of doing homework or some other responsibility you ought to attend to...because that is exactly the circumstance under which it is written!

I'm not sure if I have justified my procrastination on here before, though.  It's definitely been mentioned before, but not necessarily justified...

So why not justify it now?

But first, a brief history of my relationship with procrastination:

The thing about procrastination is that it is just so natural.  It just happens, and I was therefore exposed to it at a very early age.  In fact, it's healthy for young kids to go out and play and not do homework day in and day out.  Back in the gradeschool days, putting homework and projects off in order to live a happy, healthy childhood is hardly seen as the vice of procrastination. Indeed there are many people advocating for more childhood play time like recess and minimizing the amounts of homework that young kids have to do. They promote these things under the guise of better well-being, mental and physical health, social and attention skills, and just general happiness. We should probably take these things more seriously.

Anyway, early on life was filled with petty procrastination that coagulated every now and again into late-night science fair projects and history presentations.  You know, the kind that you helped your parents procrastinate until the night before it's due, even though you've known about it for at least a month.

This foundation gave way to middle school, where procrastination became revered as an important skill.  I boasted my abilities as a self-proclaimed "pro-crastinator" (I did indeed crastinate professionally) and juggled my classes using many late nights and productivity diluted by social media and instant messaging.  It of course only got worse the more I got away with it. Good times.

In high school, I added the skill of more constant sleep deprivation to this aspect of life.  There was also more of a shift in these years as my responsibilities were put off, not in order to play outside or indulge in frivolities, but because of the sheer load of productive things I was requiring of myself.  This included normal responsible things like a ton of classes, as well as more fun activities like soccer, lacrosse, and choir.  I definitely don't regret any of it, but it meant that many nights I wouldn't get home until 9 or 10 pm, and then I could get started on homework.  I quickly learned how to spend nights cycling between naps and homework, how to cram productivity into the wee hours of the mornings, and how to maximize the use of down time traveling or at practices and rehearsals.

Things in college are, of course, much different.  I don't have such a varied load anymore, in terms of my extra-curriculars and all.  I've largely switched out the structured sports and music for an intense class load and involvement in a handful of related clubs.  I'm still in the category of procrastinating not for fun, but out of necessity to get more pressing assignments done first, even when that means putting off another important task.  But developments such as these have introduced a new justification for my procrastinations.

Mostly because my responsibilities are so focused on one aspect of life (engineering homework...and nothing else), my need for constructive breaks -- things like exercise, hobbies, and maybe even the occasional social encounter -- can much more often fall under the category of  'for sanity' rather than 'for fun'.  Not sure if this is an improvement.  It can be hard to do these things regularly, both due to the schedule and the fact that I get anxious sometimes if I'm not actively working on homework.  But it's still something that is important to me, to do as often as possible.

Because of that, when I find myself with a smidgen of free time (read: non-panicked time; time where I have more than I will need to accomplish the tasks that are due immediately), I have an important decision to make: I can either take advantage of this time and use it to get ahead on things so that they won't be so stressful later on, or I can actually do something fun, as if to treat it as actual free time.

Usually the level of my motivation is the deciding factor here.

But when the motivation doesn't automatically tell me what to do, I can justify it with some logical thinking.

I know that things like homework are going to get done.  There is no way that those things will get pushed off indefinitely and just never get done. They have deadlines and consequences imposed by outside forces.  So the question is not if they will get done, but when.

Now, in terms of using time, I could use two hours to my enjoyment through reading or exercise or something of the type, and then spend two hours doing homework.  I could do both of those activities in any order that I want, and at the end of the day, I will have spent two hours on each.  It's a pretty good deal.  So if they both get done, there's really not much importance as to which goes first.

Because I know that the homework will get done but my hobbies or other tasks of secondary priority don't have the same guarantee, it seems perfectly logical to do things like write or meet up with friends or kick a soccer ball around for a while when I know that there will be adequate time to do the homework later.

Mind you, this doesn't happen often, so I feel even more justified in justifying it.

Plus it gives me an opportunity to show myself that I am more than just a homeworking robot engineering student, which is an important feat.

So we give procrastination a bad rap.  It can very easily become a vice and rob you of time and opportunity, but I think that if it is used with control, it can become a tool of sorts to balance priorities and time management and personal well-being.  It is important to spend time productively, and to spend down time wisely, not vapidly.  You can probably judge whether your procrastination is justifiable by whether or not you make any personal gains from whatever you've done instead of working on that long to-do list we all have.

Whether you decide to tackle your tasks head on or procrastinate productively, don't ever stop living the most that you can.

After all, "time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time." 

-Marthe Troly-Curtin

extra

As you may suspect, this is a blog entry that I am writing rather than doing my homework.  I am so rebellious.   But I suppose it's a good opportunity to continue some thoughts about education.

This term, I am taking a sociology class. This class marks the first class outside of engineering that I have taken in over a year.  I've been getting further along in my major and I've been focusing solely on engineering for a while now.

This 'become absorbed in your major' deal is actually part of the program.  You start taking specialized classes (for example, an entire series of classes dedicated to the various manners in which temperatures can change.  I now know more than is comfortable about the subject) and you start thinking and speaking like (in my case) an engineer.

For example, I have replaced all words denoting 'a part of a whole' or 'a contributing piece of something' with the word "component".  I didn't actually take note of this until I was referring to a meal I had made and its various components.  Who even uses ingredients these days?

Figure 1. The sandwich and its components.

I didn't realize just how far down the engineering path I was, though, until I took this sociology class.

I've always been a pretty diverse student, in the sense that I find many topics interesting and do relatively well with them.  This was especially evident during high school, when I had as much opportunity as I wanted to be involved in as much advanced math and science, politics, history, foreign language, literature, and music as I wanted.  So naturally, I took as many classes as possible in all of those subjects, and things were great.  On occasion cross-curricular themes would develop and the whole place was a bit of an educational wonderland for me.

I just figured that things would stay that way.  And I didn't really notice that I had become so focused on engineering that I had begun to let go of some of those other subjects I like.

Part of this happens, of course, because you simply cannot find time to take all of the interesting classes and still graduate with an actual degree before you're 55 years old and under a mountain of student debt.

So thank goodness for generals.  They take a precious few classes from outside your major and make them required so you'll actually be able to take them. :)

I thought I had a decent sociological background such that this new venture would be enriching and fun, and nothing else. So far it has definitely been enriching and generally fun (provided it's not kept me up past midnight) but also surprisingly difficult.

Maybe it's difficult because I underestimated the complexity of the social sciences. Maybe it's difficult because it's an in-depth course on something that I now realize I have no basis for.  I realized for the first time that I should probably read Marx rather than just know about it.  Maybe it's difficult because I am still trying to wrap my brain into this new style of thinking. I can no longer quantify relationships with equations and theorems.... instead the answer to "are farmers influenced by economic motives or lifestyle and family motives?" is "yes."

But there are definitely some things that I love about it, that I just don't get as much in my engineering. There is a lot more discussion and reasoning things out as a class, rather than just running through formulas on a screen.  And in sociology, every case is incredibly unique; you will never evaluate a bunch of situations or outcomes that are the same over and over and over.

I have at times heard criticisms of the current graduation requirements that students take several in-depth general classes in things that are outside of their major or intended career. We live in an increasingly specialized world where the more I know about my chosen field of study, the better I am in it, and I can easily find someone else to do things for me that are outside of my expertise. (That is why we have doctors and accountants and teachers and why services make up a huge part of first-world economies.) Under this logic, it may seem less and less necessary to obtain a general education at the collegiate level.

I do not subscribe to these criticisms or beliefs; in fact, I wish that higher education better encouraged cross-curricular study and general education.  I intend to describe some of the perceived benefits of such an arrangement in later posts. For now, I'm still talking about this strange world of sociology that I've stepped into and how it rocked my little engineering world.

So, in this sociology class we have been focusing on sustainability in agriculture, with especial regard to all of its social elements.  I have read more material than I ever imagined anyone could even publish on trends in farming, political farm issues, use of pesticides, the organic industry, how farms are structured, and so on.  I cannot say that I have learned anything even closely relevant to my intended engineering career. But I still find this an invaluable part of my education.

What I have learned, that I believe will benefit me as a human who intends to live in the world and be an engineer there, is that there is (surprisingly) this whole other world outside of engineering.  Oh sure, I always figured it was there, but sometimes it loses its palpability as you hone in on heat transfer and machine design, and especially as you spend more and more hours in the engineering building, avoiding all social life as you try to churn out homework solutions fast enough.
Well, enough of that. I'm here to embrace a little bit more the social aspects of life that I've begun learning about.

I haven't learned anything helpful about dimensioning and tolerances, but I have begun to see myself as a contributor to a larger society than just the scientific community.  I may not be learning to design tractors, but I am gaining a new understanding and respect for the people who use them. I still don't understand Thevenin circuitry, but I have begun to be aware of patterns in the world that will affect how I act, how my contributions as an engineer might really effect people and their lives, and how those causes and effects are related even to my isolated life as an engineer.

So while this class is certainly not an easy ride and you would think that an engineering student would have enough on their plate already, its something that I think has added value to my education and something that is important to continue to experience throughout education on all levels.

I am learning many important things that engineering just doesn't have a way to teach.

lenten

Well, my fellow inhabitants of the world, today is Ash Wednesday, which also marks the beginning of the season of fasting known as Lent.
What does this mean?  Well, I intend to find out.

I am not a member of the Catholic faith.  I was not raised around many catholics, and so most of what I learned about the catholic church and their beliefs came through the history books. And history books generally don't offer a pleasant view of religion, mostly because the events involving religion that made history too often did so because that religion was being exercised poorly.

That being said, if you are catholic or are well-versed in catholicism, and you see something here that has not been represented correctly, please let me know.  My intent here is to present the good that I see in this religious practice even though it is not of my own religion.

The concept of Lent has fascinated me over the past few days and and such, I did some research.  Lent is generally known as a 40-day period of fasting, prayer, and penitence.  It begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Maundy Thursday (the Thursday immediately before Easter).  This period is actually longer than the prescribed 40-day fast and there is some discrepancy on how exactly to count out the days, but the fast represents the 40 days that Jesus Christ spent fasting in the wilderness immediately following His baptism and before appearing on the Mount of Transfiguration.  The bible scholar will note other significant instances involving 40-day or 40-year periods of time.

I believe the purposes of Lent--namely fasting, prayer, and penitence--do not have to be limited to religiously-observant catholics or even christians.  Anyone stands to receive personal improvement by following them.  To put them in a less religious light, they might be called sacrifice, meditation, and self-improvement.  Call it what you may, but I hold that the process and outcomes of observing Lent can be beneficial to anyone.

Fasting generally denotes abstaining from food and water for a period of time (as Christ did in the wilderness) but for mortal people who are not the literal Son of God, a 40-day food fast is not advised.  (Fasting from food involves many personal and health considerations that should be taken into account.) Instead, Lent is generally observed by the act of giving something up or making a sacrifice.  There are many levels of sacrifice to choose from, and popular choices go from giving up sweets and meat to giving up being angry or rude.  The purpose of fasting or sacrifice is to give up something valuable in exchange for something else, which is most often an intangible reward. Frequently, the reward of the sacrifice is found to be more valuable than the original sacrifice made.

The act of fasting or sacrifice is also intended to have a lasting change on the individual.  Many fasts, particularly those from food, end after a period of time and things return to the way they were previously--the person now released from their fast eats and carries on with their lives.  Many religions prescribe regular fasts from food for various amounts of time.  Because participants of the fast return to their normal food-eating routine after the fast, the purpose and effects of such a fast must be something other than physical.  This is where the other elements of Lent--prayer and penitence--come in.  As the body undergoes a more intense period of self-control where the mind and heart deny it of physical sustenance for a time, it opens up opportunities to focus more on the spiritual and mental and less on the physical.

Deeper changes happen as prayer and meditation provide channels for introspection, peace, relaxation, and a deeper connection with a whole (be that god, nature, or humanity) to come into one's life.  These connections influence fasting and sacrifice by giving inspiration and meaning to the fast, as well as a greater willpower and sense of ability to achieve the goals of the fast or to make it through the intended sacrifice. It can also help people become more aware of benefits of their fast or sacrifice that they may not have noticed previously.

Penitence is generally defined as the act of showing sorrow or regret for sins or trespasses, and in the Catholic faith this involves the confession of sins to a priest.  To me, penitence is the first step to becoming a better version of yourself.  Once you have recognized that you've made a mistake or can improve in some way, it logically follows that you should put forth an effort to change that.  One of the greatest parts of this human experience is the fact that we can change ourselves.

In 2015, Pope Francis II gave his address for Lent and proposed that people give up indifference, in turn becoming more aware of and caring for those around them.  This is one of my favorite views of sacrifice, where rather than seeing the process as a denial or limitation, it is seen as an additional focus or improvement that one undertakes.  It is still a sacrifice--of our time, our selfish thoughts, our comfort--but it becomes much more purposeful end enriching.  In addition to the spiritual aspects of fasting, such a sacrifice to improve oneself has a lasting effect on one's way of life. Indeed, 40 days is certainly enough time to build a new habit.

I would like to encourage everyone to make a sacrifice or change in their lives to become closer to what they envision the best version of themselves to be.  During Lent is a great opportunity to do so, but the most important thing is to do it when you're ready, rather than when the world expects you to.  I am observing Lent myself for the first time and, although I have fasted in various ways before, I am excited to see what I learn from the experience.

I will digress from the previous practices regarding the titles of the posts in two ways: first, by using a word that is not Latin, and second, by commenting directly on its meaning.  "Lent" is an abbreviation of the Middle English word "lenten", which was originally used to denote springtime.  I appreciate this because as the weather warms up it is clear to see that springtime is a season of rebirth and fresh starts.  Lenten sacrifice provides us just that.

ineptus

Get ready for a couple of posts all in a row about education.  That's what's on my mind right now because that's pretty much all I do!  When they say "full-time college student" they secretly meant "all-the-time college student". There is no 40-hour deal here.  And no paid overtime.

I've been playing this college game for a while now.  I am on the latter-half of things, now with fewer semesters between me and graduation than the semesters I have behind me.  I've been taking the real-deal classes now (no more prerequisites) and I started feeling like I really know what I'm doing here.  I know how to study and test and do homework and I am far enough into my program that I'm pretty familiar with whatever they will throw at me.

Or so I thought.

Turns out, this semester has been full of surprises.  And not the kinds of surprises I was even expecting. (...That's what makes them surprises.)

I cannot even count the number of times I have used the word "inept" or "ineptitude" to describe my new-found feelings for this term.

See, after thinking that I knew what to expect and I was far enough into things that everything would look like a more specialized extension of what I had studied last semester, I have been humbled exceedingly by the actual content of classes this term.

The first is from a course I am taking as part of my general education.  I like being well-rounded and well-read, so I like the idea of general education.  Narrowing choices down as to which upper-level psychology or philosophy or Spanish class I could take was a difficult choice.  This semester, I ended up in a sociology class, which I figured would be a welcome change from all the calculations and formulas I'm usually dealing with.  I had taken a demographic sociology course before and felt decent that I had retained the most important concepts, so this class couldn't be too surprising, while still allowing me to stretch my limits and expand a little into another subject.

Turns out there is no end to the number of sociological things that I do not know, or even have the slightest idea about.
So I get to read.

This phenomena of ineptitude could be expected when you take a class so unrelated to your chosen field of study.  But it has also started happening in my engineering classes.

Some of the concepts and material we learned as freshmen and then never spoke of again have miraculously resurfaced.  And they are in every single class.  After three or four years. Gaaahhhh.  The sudden realization that I in fact, do need to remember all of my past education is a little bit alarming because my brain has been trying not to be a pack rat and get rid of some of the unused stuff up there.
I really hope we kept it instead of donating it to Goodwill.

I thought I was so good at this.  I have never felt so inept at school before.

But this feeling of ineptitude, unqualification, and belittlement is not inherently a bad thing, albeit uncomfortable.  It's probably one of the biggest learning opportunities I'll have all year.  Not only to learn about the electronics I have forgotten and the ins and outs of sociology, but also to learn about myself and how to do things such as handle stress, read my eyes out, study way too many subjects at once, and hopefully figure out a more specific direction for what I am even planning to do with all of this.

Other aspects of myself that I hope to learn about include:

•  how I can actually make a difference in the world, 
• why specializing in something and knowing way too much about it (for example, the many failure modes of steel) is worthwhile, 
• what my priorities are, 
• what I can an cannot live without, and 
• how to simultaneously kick butt at school while not becoming a homework-doing robot, void of fun or emotion.

Something valuable happens when education belittles you and you realize just how big the world is.  Having your eyes opened to the vastness of how much you really don't know is a beautiful experience in a way.  The funny thing is that as we find more answers, those answers spark new questions.  As the expanse of knowledge we have--both as a collective community of humans, but also as individual minds--continues to grow, somehow the realm of what is beyond our knowledge, and therefore what is possible to be discovered and achieved, expands as well.

refoveo [refresh]

In case you've been wondering why the blog here has been silent for the past six weeks, it's school.  School happened, and suddenly all my hobbies were swept away.  Goodbye, my former life.

Actually, all that school means is that I just have to relearn (once again--I swear this happens every semester) how to have a life.  School will do a great job taking over your life, you know.  Especially if it's Engineering school.  And especially especially if you let it.

So this is me saying, "Hold on, school.  You are not the single most important thing about my life.  You do not have a monopoly on what defines me."  If I don't look out for my hobbies and explore things that interest me here and there, this education thing will obscure my mind.

And yes, right now I have a few more pages to read in my textbook, and a quiz to study for, and several engineering problems to work out before the morning comes again and brings new assignments as effortlessly as refreshing a webpage.  I put all this stress and effort into this long list of assignments, and every morning someone pushes a big F5 and everything I had checked off of my to-do list the night before is suddenly there again, box unchecked.  I turn in one assignment only to receive a new one. The world is mocking me. Evidence can be seen below.

Behold, evidence.

Anyone who has completed tasks such as laundry or doing the dishes will recognize the feeling of always having more work to do and never truly being done.  It's like running on a treadmill; you can crank that sucker up and run as fast and as hard as you can.  You can pace yourself and run for hours.  You run until you can't see straight and your skin is soggy with sweat.  And when you get off, you're still in exactly the same place you were when you started the process.

Behold, the treadmill of engineering.

But there has to be some value to the process of running in circles, because otherwise treadmills would be known only as torture devices, and engineering school (or any study or discipline or employment, really) would be a hilarious trap for otherwise clever people.  I think the students would have figured it out by now though, and if it weren't worth something at the end of running all those circles, we'd be smart enough to avoid all the pain and effort in the first place. 

Evidently, this is why I subject myself to a never-ending list of tasks to be completed.  And it's hard to keep up with life because life keeps updating itself.  Thanks, life.

Because my education-imposed list of tasks can often make it seem like so little is actually getting done, the small victories in doing something on my personal, "want-to-do list" bring a much greater sense of accomplishment.  Even though that list refreshes just as often.  But it's more refreshing when it does.

For example, look at that.  I made this blog post just now.  Aww yeee.  It feels refreshing just having accomplished it.

Of course, you have to work on both of these lists during your life--your to-do list and your want-to-do list.  The to-do list is important because it's normally relieving when a task is completed. And the want-to-do list is for when you need to be refreshed yourself in order to keep up with your ever-refreshing life.

cognoscere

Okay.  Continuing on with thoughts from places: the return from Europe.

One of the things that I really want to emphasize--that being in Europe has demonstrated to me in daily abundance--is the absolute dearth of knowledge I have.

Please note that the word there is not depth, it is dearth; a word which here means the opposite of depth or breadth or really anything impressive. A veritable lacking, if you will. So there is no typo.

For one thing Europe has history that predates recorded history, and it's so dynamic and diverse across the continent that it's impossible to not learn something that you've never even heard of almost every time you turn around.

Couple that with the myriad languages and dialects you never thought you'd encounter, the foods you've never fathomed, the ways of life you've never considered living.... everything just combines to remind you that you must keep learning, all the time. Don't get lazy and assume you know enough. There are vast realms of things worth finding out and perspectives you didn't know existed!

I mean, I thought myself a clever, well-educated person; well-read enough to at least know a little about most things. But even after all that, I've come to see that the amount of stuff that I know can be condensed into something that might be best described by comparing the volume of the earth to that of the sun.

Earth for scale

Take into consideration the amount of stuff that I truly understand, and we're talking the earth compared to the milky way and beyond here.

One thing I understand quite clearly, though, is this:  I understand nothing.  Which makes for a good paradox, especially because it's true. In my world, the one constructed by me, I understand the majority of things--like 51%. But once I get outside of myself, that amount quickly converges to zero.

And no matter how much learning and experiencing I do in this life, the amount of understanding that I capture will really never rise above zero.

I say this not to belittle our individual mental capacities or existences, but because I think it does us a great deal to realize that the perspective that crowds so much of our consciousness and understanding is frequently hopelessly inadequate at understanding another person.  We can catch glimpses and sympathize. On occasion we even manage empathy. But we cannot assume that we know how someone feels, or can judge them for what they're doing. That's as presumptuous as claiming to understand the intricacies of the universe!

At the same time, we can't expect other people to be able to get on our level, either. Their level of understanding you is just as incomplete as your level of understanding them.  I think that if we both understood this and remembered it more, we'd be more patient and compassionate and, paradoxically, understanding.

So don't forget how much of the World you've left out there completely unexplored! Good luck exploring it all :)

mora [wait, time]

You would think that now that it's summer and classes and homework are no longer taking up all my mental real estate, I would have some time to put some good stuff up on the world wide web, no?
Well, evidently, we're both wrong about that time.

So, with my admittance of being lazy with the blog lately, comes a life lesson I learned while in Arkansas:

You only have time for what you make time for.

Ultimately implying that you are in control of your time more than your time is in control of you.  Obviously, there are days and times when life takes you for some unexpected turns and even though you had set apart time to finally read that book or to get the lawn done before it becomes a forest, other things end up happening.  Unexpected priorities take command from time to time, and this is a normal fact of life.  But it's the occasion.

On the regular, you fill your time each day with tasks and obligations and meetings and even sometimes a little sleep.  And each person has to choose what is most important for them to make time for.  And amidst the hectic scheduling and growing to-do lists, we each have a list somewhere of things to get around to, "if I have time".

Well look around! You have time and space all around you.  In fact, you travel through time on a very regular basis.  No matter what, you're always progressing forward, into the future.  Every moment of your life you witness the inexplicable conundrum of the future becoming the present--short-lived, and then slipping into the past.  Doing this, you acquire more and more time behind you.  The more you age, the more time you've had!  You have plenty of time!

The difference, of course, between your run-of-the-mill time traveler (like most of us) and someone who commands time, is what you do with it.

One of the most underutilized resources we have on this planet is ten minutes.

Think about it.  Ten minutes isn't that long of a wait, and you probably wait for about ten minutes several times throughout the day. For the train to come. For the water to boil. For that person you're meeting.  For the customer service representative to take you off hold.  And it's not too big of a deal, because ten minutes really isn't that long of a time.

But once you're using those ten minutes...it somehow becomes much longer than you thought.  You would be amazed at what you can accomplish in ten minutes.  I often am, whenever I remember to stop wasting my life.  If you will get off of Facebook and look at your to-do list, you'll probably find that most of those items would take only a short time.  You could call that lady back about the thing (two days later than you intended to) while you walk to work.  You could write that thank-you note from two weeks ago on your lunch break.  And then write the other one while you're in the car to pick someone up.  You could even write a blog post while you eat your lunch!

Ah.  It feels really good to get this done and stop having it hang over my head.

And the nice thing is that the more time you make for things, the more time you have.  I still haven't worked out how this actually works with the physics and the motion of the universe (since that's how we measure time these days) but I have found it to be true time and time again.  When you have a productive day and fill in the time gaps with useful things you've been meaning to do, it somehow all gets done.  More things done in less time.  It's probably witchcraft.  But it helps.  It even starts a productive cycle.  You do more, so then you feel better, so then you do more, so then you feel better.  Yeeee.

So if you feel like you don't have time for all the important things and all the things you want to do and all the things you need to do and all the things the other people want you to do....

Just make some time.

exitus

It's the last day of April, and for me, the last day of the semester.  Hallelujah.

Everywhere I turn, people are packing up and moving out. Finishing classes, saying goodbyes, graduating, moving on to different things...
The world is abundant with endings today.
And as humans, we tend not to like endings.  In general, we think they're sad.
Except for endings like strenuous runs or hard classes, which are victorious.

But here's a little secret about endings.  We need them.

We need finish lines and goals and even the goodbyes.  Without them, we would accomplish much less, under-appreciate most things, and sell ourselves short in almost every way.  And life, even though it goes on, would lose much of its savor.

Endings push us beyond the limits we put for ourselves.  One excellent example is the story of Florence Chadwick, a brilliant swimmer who enjoyed pushing the limits.  She swam the English Channel both ways, and had decided to do a long-distance swim along the coastline of California.  It was a foggy day, and she swam for hours despite barely being able to see the support boats alongside her.  After fifteen exhausting hours, she finally relented to the chilly water and her aching muscles, and asked to be pulled into the boats.  They continued to land and discovered that Florence had swum all but half a mile of her intended distance.  Upon learning this, she said, "All I could see was the fog.  I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it."



Setting a goal and seeing the finish line helps us to dig deeper within ourselves and push through the tiredness, the aches and pains, and whatever else comes our way.  Going on an endless swim into the ocean, we're more likely to sell ourselves short and stop before we realize how close we are to achieving our goals.

The other opportunity that endings afford us is a moment to reflect back on what we've done and who we've become.  It's usually the most natural time for people to say things they should have been saying all along: "Thank you for being a good friend," "I'm glad to have you in my life," "You are a quality human being and I hope you have a wonderful life."  You know, those things that your friends might write in a yearbook, given they actually know you and are sincere about the things they write in yearbooks.  Without the goodbyes we have to say, I fear we would take a lot more relationships for granted.  We would fail to express our appreciation and respect for each other like we should.  Our relationships would be much less fulfilling on the whole if we never had to face the reality of saying goodbye.

When we realize that endings come and at some point, we must all be left, or leave ourselves, I think we gain a better understanding of how valuable the present moment is.  We tend to spend our time better, realizing that it will come to an end.  We won't always be at this place, with these people, doing these things.  We'll have to move on some day.  And turns out, that day is rapidly approaching.

So as much as we must seize the day, I find that we must also embrace the endings.

dimensio

I've been somewhat inundated with thoughts lately and don't even know where to begin.

I suppose it all started when I realized just how much school had taken over my life, to the extent that I didn't have time anymore to do 'normal human' things.  Read: I didn't have time to do the things I love.
Granted, I had realized this stuff for a while or so before I ended up doing anything to fix the problem.  I've since been much better at writing a little bit every day, playing soccer when I can, and even having friends. :D
It helps, of course, that the homework is over.  And that I would go insane from studying for finals if I didn't take those breaks.

But one of the things that I have noticed in this shift in my life is just how different a person I am based on the things I'm doing in and with my life.

A quick Venn diagram, if you will:



Gotta love those Venn diagrams.

So basically, when I allow school to consume me and fail to make time for other people...I feel like a robot that does homework all day, rather than a human being.  And it takes a huge toll.
I will not deny that a large part of the paucity of posts lately is due to this robot's failure to have ideas worth writing and expanding and sharing.

So I was talking with the Dean of my college recently and one of the things she said about the intent of our education is for us to become three-dimensional people.  Colleges are really good at spitting out one-dimensional people, who know their stuff and can do a great job at engineering or math or teaching literature or singing...whatever it is that they've been studying now for years.  But a large part of our education should be to enhance that dimension of ourselves with other dimensions.  To learn how to communicate across other disciplines and to see how our area of focus can help other areas or can be developed by other areas.  To have experience in differing fields, and that even though you've dedicated all you are to this one great discipline (in my case, engineering), you should still be able to say that you make time for hobbies and you like to find new interests.  You have a grab-bag of skill sets because of all the volunteer projects you've helped with, and you're able to understand more of the world because you've taken the time to see it from more than just one angle or dimension.

Not to mention that three-dimensional people just stand out. ;)

So I've been having greater success at that lately, and it's true; it makes you feel more real.