May 21st, 2010

We are now entering the fifth power

I subscribe to a lunatic form of birthday numerology, which–while pleasing to me–has no known correlation whatsoever with reality. Sometimes when I start prattling on to someone about what their current age means for their fortunes, I assume they know I am being in(s)ane, but then they say, “Really?” and I get worried. So just to be clear:

I made this shit up.

I was good at high school math, not amazing, but good enough that I took it in university too. I was not good at university math, but I was a ways into it before I realized that. So now…I know a lot of low-level math stuff, but my life is pretty word-based. My only chances to use numbers are 1) calculating the tip in a restaurant, 2) tax season (I got reassessed yesterday–boo!), 3) birthdays.

My age is the number most central to my life, and I like thinking about it (certainly more central and more pleasant than my income, or my address, SIN, whatever). My mom and I even have an adorable algorithm that spits out the years in which our ages will be the reverse (diget-wise) of each other (this is possible because I was born in a year in which my mother’s age was divisble by nine–isn’t that cool? Did you just stop reading?)

All this is by way of saying, I am going to turn 32 on Sunday. Do you know what 32 is? Well, the subject line mentions it, but maybe you had a boyfriend/girlfriend in grade 9 and thus your math homework from that year does not loom in your memory as vividly as it does in mine.

32 is 2⁵ or 2 x 2 x 2 x2 x2 or the only fifth power in the human lifespan!!! The next one is 263, possible mainly for trees and coral. I guess you could count age 1 as a fifth power, because it is all powers (all powerful?) but that seems like sort of cheating and anyway I didn’t get much out of math as an infant.

So this year is going to be a year unlike any other for me, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced…and yet, because it is so divisible, I think that 32 will contain much that is familiar as component parts, though perhaps in new forms.

This is where I figure it is ok if I believe my own mumbo-jumbo, but I have to FYI anyone who is listening to me without rolling their eyes that they probably shouldn’t (listen to me, not roll their eyes–they probably should do that).

Do I have a point? Oh, barely. I’m just really really excited to be 2^5. Though 31 (a prime, and therefore a year of strength due to indivisibility) was a pretty fantastic age, too. Actually, I liked 30 too…

Maybe mathiness is just excuse to talk about my birthday. I like other things about birthdays besides numbers…cake, glitter, gifts, hugs, balloons…

This is going to be a really good weekend, I think. The rest of the year, too.

April 25th, 2007

Educationally speaking

I did it, I graded 81 final examinations on CanLit! That 60ish hours of careful consideration of undergraduate views on many major Canadian authors has made me question the value of the general liberal arts education. I don’t (think I) mean that facetiously. When I first started marking, when students would started spouting made-up information on books they clearly hadn’t read, I would think to myself, slashing angrily with my orange pen, “Why take the course if you refuse to learn anything? University is, if nothing else, expensive! Take credits you care about.”

Then, about 10 papers in, I got it–they don’t have a choice. I don’t think this class per se is a requirement, but I believe some sort of low level arts class is, and this one foots the bill. I actually witnessed an attractive, reasonably organized-looking couple at the exam high-five each other while exclaiming, “Last English class ever!”

Indeed. Much as I loved my liberal arts education, and much as it has benefited me in my chosen career path as a marginally employed daydreamer, I question the value of making future engineers and media designers and office managers read short stories and poems. It only makes them angry, or worse, horribly formulaic in their reading. These are the people who grow up to read The Lovely Bones because it teaches so much about the grieving process. End-result focused reading (what’s the value-add? what’s the lesson learned?) is scary to me as a writer, because I’m not sure my work *has* a educational component, except in that airy, literary, experiental sort of way. That’s the sort of thing I like best to read…no, wait, what I *really* like to read is entertainment, for the joy of it. If it looks boring, I don’t wanna read it.

That being said, in high school, undergrad and even now, I read some things that I don’t exactly “enjoy” but that broaden my context, expose me to new ideas or challenge me to think in new ways. I like that part of it, even if I don’t like the book itself. That is what keeps me taking recommendations from all sorts of people with tastes completely unlike mine–I want to get smarter, better at this reading thing.

But that’s kinda my job, you know? As a writery person (someday I’ll make it a noun…) Besides, if anybody tries to *insist* on me reading something, I’ll balk. My spare time is too limited, and my poor brain, too. Are these balky undergrads really learning anything other than how to regurgitate reading guides and, more depressingly, how to hate literature and all its “lessons”? I worry. If requirements are punitive and boring, will they make students elect to never read again? Lots of smart people don’t read. Even fewer people read fiction–lots of super-intelligent academics don’t read outside their own fields, and they aren’t boring, stultified or trivial. I enjoy talking to these non-readers at parties; often, you’d never even *know* (we should make them wear funny hats!)

Why should books be some sort cod-liver oil of the mind? Believe me, if you were reading these exams, you’d know that enforced reading isn’t joyful. But on the other hand… I took a bunch of elective maths when I was an undergrad, which nearly killed me, and I studied music for fourteen years despite showing zero aptitude for it. Why? Because I liked the way those things made me think, what they did for my brain. And then I stopped, because I’m not young enough to just absorb new things at random, or to have the free time to do it in. I’m sure even my best theorem proofs and sonatas seemed like rote drudgery to anyone who had a gift for those disciplines, but it wasn’t the end product that was important to me; it was the way my thoughts spun on after that ending. I can’t remember for the life of me how to calculate the area under a curve, but I think I’m smarter still for having learnt it once.

So what is the answer? To read or not to read? Have there been studies done, what percentage of the population over 22 reads for pleasure, and if there is an intelligence quotient correspondence? And what about those of us who took one little course in chaos theory? Did that add brain cells or stress them to death?

Just curious.

From the 100 years war to the Crimea
RR