something that made me angry

This is gonna be brief and completely unrelated to anything, but I need a break from my math thesis (draft due tomorrow, not near done). Too much math thinking and I get this localized pressure headache about halfway back on the right side. I kinda hope that's a part of the brain related to some kind of spacial cognition, and that it's out of shape or something. Thesis is Feel The Burn, and that's not terrible, right? Just getting myself back into shape after a semester of no math whatsoever, and in preparation for a next couple years that will use math not at all, most likely.

Anyway, I saw this article this morning. And it waaaaaay pissed me off. It's stuff like this that makes me distrust the Academy; it's probably this type of thing that makes Tom Cruise flip his shit about psychology. Let's dissect this piece of bad journalism for a minute, yeah?

Main argument: today's college kids are horribly narcissistic--if not in a clinical way, in a way that portends the destruction of our American values and whatever. "Researchers warn that a rising ego rush could cause personal and social problems"; "That makes me very, very worried," said Jean Twenge, who last year published a book titled "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before." A serious charge, to be sure.

Her evidence? How students reacted to questions like "If I ruled the world, it would be a better place," "I think I am a special person". First, I think that the last six years have made it pretty clear exactly how much competence is required to rule the world, help one of America's most important cities rebuild after a catastrophic natural disaster, play games with the media about classified information, etc. It's not saying a lot for the average American to assert, "I could probably do about this well with that job."

Meanwhile, the fuss over 'special' is scary in its own right. I certainly remember how important it was in preschool to affirm that everyone in the class was special, and maybe we have all internalized it. But what's the alternative? "I am a faceless cog in the capitalist machine!" Aiyah. Give me the narcissism every time. How can the Times make a statement like "People with an inflated sense of self tend to have less interest in emotionally intimate bonds" when the alternative is apparently people who feel completely typical, replaceable, not special? Who wants to talk to someone who feels like they have nothing unique to contribute, let alone have intimate emotional bonds with them?

Next piece of evidence: surveys indicating that contemporary students are more likely to claim they are attending college for economic security than to develop "a meaningful philosophy of life" compared to students in the 1970s. My reaction is to see this as another positive change--rather than viewing higher education as a luxury (i.e. free time to think about things) to which they are entitled, college students today recognize the role higher education plays in the formation of economic class. I think that the change in survey results reflects the increased accessibility of college to more people, and a recognition among students from a variety of backgrounds that education is a tool that can ensure financial security for yourself and increased opportunity for your family down the line.

Third: a sociology major complains because she wanted to survey people, "But many students were so self-absorbed they didn't want to participate." Being solicited for psych and sociology surveys is far from the most enjoyable part of being in college, and I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that student apathy toward a three-minute survey about jury duty has little to nothing to do with narcissism or self-obsession. It just means nobody likes strangers walking up to them on the street and asking them to do stuff. Surprise!

Basically, this is another one of those articles that makes the front page (of the online edition, at least), has a splashy headline, and then backs it up with little to no real content. The LA Times, I've noticed, is really conservative when it comes to higher education, just as the faculty they interviewed seemed to be. The level of distrust in students seeping out of every quote printed in that article makes me a little sick inside. For every step of progress toward making post-secondary education accessible to more Americans (note Barack Obama's goal of universally available college education for everyone who qualifies), there are the elitists who cling to the University as the ivory tower beacon-in-the-wilderness. Mark Flacks, Asst. Prof. at Cal State LB: "The old model was a collegial one in which students and professors alike sought knowledge for knowledge's sake. The new model is 'I paid my money, give me my grade and degree.' It makes me want to ask [students], 'Want fries with that order?' "

Typical words from someone who ended up in the system himself as a professor. I've been skeptical before of the people for whom college is itself such an amazing experience that they end up working there, but this refusal to see education for what it is in our society--a means to a better job, and hence to a better neighborhood, better public schools, wealth--in order to grouse about knowledge for its own sake need to get a clue. The last four years have been great for self-discovery, life experience, call it what you want, but seeing academics as a closed machine that uses knowledge to make more knowledge showed its age decades ago. Grrrr.

And with that, I'm gonna get back to discussing some non-standard analysis.

a winning 96ish hrs

Weeks like this remind me that things can really pull together, that there's a direction that all those other weekends spent trying to make progress on some godawful thesis-related reading. Wednesday night, like I mentioned, featured the reading of my piece in writing class, which was honestly just validating on so many levels. I feel like I'm starting to bridge the gap: I've been having ideas to write about for a while, but this was the first time I was able to build what I wanted to say through prose. It's a different feeling from any other kind of writing I've done in a looooong time, possibly ever. It was a good night.

Thursday and Friday morning, I worked my little tush off to get my math thesis talk in working order. This involved the complete deletion of everything I'd tried to do last week and the streamlining of my content. Oh, and pictures, which as it turns out are a pain in the ass to make. But it all got done in plenty of time. I was in bed by a reasonable hour, cut class to rehearse but didn't get too stressed about everything. Got complimented on my tie. Said everything I wanted to say, more importantly communicated at least some of what drew me into the topic, and to some extent into math in general. And then afterwards, I was given an American Mathematical Society pocket-protector. Oh yeah.

Also friday, Dr. Angela Davis came to campus to give a lecture. Although I felt like her talk had a lot of educating (that problems exist) instead of expanding (on where we can start dismantling), her arguments and words were more elegant than anything I've ever said. She related a little bit about her background without over-dramatizing; she made institutional racism concrete without resorting to stories of offensive comments or ambiguous awkward situations, without relying on shock to convince whatever skeptics were in the house. Even when a (white, male) audience member asked a hostile question, her answer was complete, reasonable, and most of all patient. I feel like becoming politicized, working for social justice, even just trying to be conscious of the ways in which we all are complicit in institutions of injustice can be so depressing. But somehow, Dr. Davis has overcome all the doubters in her life, a trial for three capital crimes, and all of the additional garbage flung at public icons involved in activism. And she has done so without sounding weary or angry or any of the feelings that seem like such a natural response.

Saturday, slept way in (wonderfully, warmly). Went to a bar in K-town with Min and Kim for beer, pajeon, and korean-style fried chicken. The food was stunning, the bar was fun, and I had a wave of enthusiasm for if-I-actually-get-this-Fulbright. Afterwards, we had plain frozen yogurt without toppings at Pinkberry, which had a richness of flavor I would never have believed could come from frozen yogurt prior to last night.

Today, woke up late again, and hit up sushi cruise with Kim. We got the all you can eat and doubled up the cost of our meals (taking a copy of the price sheet to calculate value on the way home).

And now I just have a ton of work that needs to get done over the next couple days. A small price to pay, I would say, for actually enjoying a weekend. Most of the "breaks" I've been taking this year have been ultimately dissatisfying--just another way of rationalizing avoiding my responsibilities, not really enjoyed. This was something else entirely.

tossoff -- mostly writing about writing

My creative writing class used my piece for this week as one of its to-be-critiqued samples. While I know that we're methodically going through the class, and everyone's will be read once or twice over the course of the semester, I couldn't help but be a little thrilled inside. Prof Klinkenborg reads both of the selected pieces to the class aloud before we start in on the critique, and I was all nervous as I heard my words coming from some other part of the room.

That said, I was proud of this piece. I feel like I'd isolated some of the crap I do over and over again in trying to construct prose from the first three weeks and worked to cut it out. I went into his office to chat about things monday, and I think that helped too. So I guess I'm learning a lot in the class, which is 1. great and 2. surprising since I normally can't measure progress until after a course is over. By this, I mean that it never seems like I'm absorbing that much in classes until the next semester rolls around and I discover just how much I internalized from the reading I'd halfheartedly done a couple months earlier. It's a really good feeling to try to reduce what starts as an academic idea down to a tangible and lucid little chunk of prose (something I would be humoring myself to claim I've done successfully). And by that measure, I feel justified in glowing over my little essay like a proud parent. Come to think of it, I have no idea when I last felt genuinely proud of my writing. I'm pretty sure that was one of the reasons I wanted so bad to get into the class, and I'm reassured that this most rudimentary of plans is starting so well.

If you ask real nicely, I may try my hand at some editing and then put it up here. But sometimes it's better to take what you can from a positive situation rather than revisiting it, hacking it to bits, and ending up ultimately disappointed. Oh, and happy valentine's day.

politics, because sometimes I can't help it

Specifically, when the News of the Day involves me meeting someone in person. I think that's where we went wrong, ending up with a country too big to meet the people who we deem most fit to be in charge of several important areas of our lives. I still have my autographed Ken Salazar sign on the wall of my dorm room, from the time we campaigned for him and I made it in the Denver Post shaking his hand, which was pretty cool.

I also still harbor a kind of fondness for Alberto Gonzales who 1. has the most amazing handshake of anyone I've ever shaken hands with and 2. we (as DoJ interns that summer in Washington) met right around the rumors that he would be nominated to the Supreme Court, arguably the first hispanic Justice (Cardozo was Portuguese, and there's argument about what that means in America's essentializing system of race). I'd say that was the apex of his public esteem--he had a solid record, and was a pleasant contrast to the Age of Ashcroft. He still seemed trustworthy. Then, of course, the spiraling senate hearing crap where we all learned that while attorneys can be either deviously charming or irritating when they prove how much cleverer they are than Ted Kennedy, Gonzales' stonewalling on that unarraigned terror suspect bullshit was the later. And then the nadir-plumbing fakeout, releasing or changing the status of detainees before their cases could be heard in the supreme court (which was a defeat for his position, but he refused to apologize/retract anything). So yeah, I'm conflicted about that guy; did I mention he has an amazing handshake?

The reason I mention these episodes is because next tuesday, Steph and I are going to LA. To see... the man himself, Senator Barack Obama! After two years of Krys haranguing me about his convention speech, I picked up his book last semester, and it blew. my. mind. In addition to my joy at his exploration of multiraciality in his life, I think my ideal America and the Senator's are pretty similar. I happily drew in the ideology of elementary school American history. America is a land where we are always progressing to a more just state. American history remembers those who fight for noble causes, and as a country, we own up to mistakes. Americans are fundamentally decent people, who may sometimes be manipulated by the ruling class (and capitalism, etc) to do some shitty things, but never in malice. America is really about those ideals we all share, deep down, about fairness and justice and equality and freedom and the desire to make our country the best fucking country in the world. Stuff like that.

Well, so, as a history major, I know most of these ideas are partly or completely fictitious. The constitutional convention was a lot of things, but a summit on liberty and universal rights for all races and genders was not one of them. It takes a HUGE fuckup for America to apologize, and most of the other stuff it doesn't even bother to try to twist into favorable narratives--it just conveniently forgets about American imperialism, historical infringements on the rule of law, minority rights, and so on. This is a problem, at least for my optimism.

And that's why I will now declare that nothing would please me more in the next 18 months than Barack for President. His words, spoken and written, seem to me to be rooted in personal conviction that we can do something about all the problems. It's well and good for chuck hagel to blow up at his senate committee about how much time they spend sitting on their hands. And it's nice to hear some inspiring visionary (calculated) message from John Edwards, I guess. But there is no price to be put on authenticity. And Sen. Obama has it in spades. To me, the Presidency is more about articulating a vision of America than picking an mpg rating for our light trucks to meet by 2011. And Sen. Obama has that vision--you can hear it every time he talks about his country. Our country.

That's why going to this rally is making me excited. The mixed-race Presidential candidate is a wonderful thing in of itself, to be sure, and it's already forced a lot of fucking idiots to rethink their narrow racial categories, which is cool. But that aside, his ideals, what we can be as a country, as The American People, are what blow me away.

If you have half an hour today, http://www.barackobama.com/tv/
It would mean a lot to me, and I honestly believe that it will mean a lot to you as well.


Tuesday night, we're going to the Clips game, too. But that's not quite as exciting, especially if elton brand is out.

time = enemy

So I went to bed last night at like 4, fell asleep in both my classes, went to see mary rose's really good presentation for lunch, fell asleep during senior thesis presentations, and then got reamed by my thesis advisor on the work I did last night. And now I have fifteen minutes to pack before leaving campus for the next 24 hrs on a retreat things with the 5-college asian american student organization. Um, what?

I've basically put off this thesis presentation (next friday, 1:15 in millikan 134, free food + my eternal gratitude to follow) as long as I possibly can. Granted, I managed to make a mundane topic into a fucking nightmare of stuff nobody has any background in, so it's partially a problem of not that much institutional support. I don't want to sound that bitter about this, but I feel like a lot of other majors had their hands held by their thesis advisors. I just had a chance this afternoon to meet with one of two faculty members who's actually trained in mathematical logic, and he's not even in the math department. Aiyah. Just... the stream of criticism from my advisor after my presentation run-though was voluminous, but it was somehow worse because I knew it was all completely legit. I feel like everything I'm trying to talk about isn't exactly sitting on a solid foundation in my mind, and that my presentation will either over- or under-compensate for that.

I think, at my core, I still feel like I can make a good presentation, even a great one, by next Friday. The subject is hard, but it's not impossible. I just wonder if I can muster the wherewithal not to completely screw up next week by wasting time the way I did this week. Everyone needs time to themselves every once in a while, but I think this past week has all been about making excuses for not doing shit with my time. Today, the only downtime I've had was the shower I took between class and lunch. I need that in-shower time to collect myself every day, but I seriously gotta think about jettisoning most of the other things I do to avoid getting this thing done. Whether I've willingly admitted it or not, I care a lot about how this presentation turns out. It's just that I need to back up my emotional investment with doing.

validation

So I just got back from one of those free psychotherapy sessions at our student health center, and I'm feeling pretty good. Good not so much like happy, but like everything that was rattling around loose inside of me is in its right place after all. I don't know that either of us said anything particularly novel during the session, so it's not that I had an epiphany. Rather, the source of my comfort is the the stream of validating remarks I get from the therapist. And that's why I keep going back.

Sometimes, all a problem really needs is a good listen. And by good, I don't mean "and then advice is given to help solve it". The problems that paralyze me, the ones that I don't really like to vent to people, are the ones that don't admit a solution. If there is an answer, even if I don't know what it is, it's not an issue that's going to keep me up at night. There's just that special class of destructive emotions, jagged-edged thoughts that lodge at the edge of consciousness and just kind of stay there. These things have to be treated with patience, like you're still going to feel bad about that relationship until you've changed so much as a person that the experience means something different to you.

That's why I'm more than happy to keep going back to the counseling center my tuition helps to fund. Talking about a problem doesn't always lead to it's being fixed. But sometimes all I need is a stream of warm words of validation ("There's nothing wrong with thinking that, seeing things that way, your reaction to the situation") to plow the tangles of negativity back under.

It may be a consequence of some of my privilege that I feel so comfortable sitting down with someone I don't actually know anything about (but I'm not going to get into that right at this moment), but I don't want to tarnish the kind of inner cleanliness or order I feel like I come away with. Like all good things, I find myself trying to capture the state of mind I'm in, as though I'll be able to save it for later.

preview: school catches up with life

This will, in all likelihood, be a bad week. I like to think of saturday at a litmus test for the next week's motivation: I rarely get a lot done, but the important issue is more why things didn't get done. Next weekend, for example, I have actual, honest-to-god plans, so not getting stuff done is an unfortunate but necessary part of next saturday. This week, though, I had dinner meeting and not much else. Results? Mixed to not-so-hot. Somehow, the amount of time I can spend messing around with the internet on a given day expands to fill the gaps in my schedule, and with no plans today, I feel like I can't honestly account for the time from when I got up til now. Thus: it portends to be a bad week--not getting stuff done when I had the opportunity (and nobody knocking at my door to take me away from my work) is not good for one's karma.

Having a lot to do this week--asian american lit presentation on wednesday, two extended meetings with thesis advisor tuesday/thursday about what the hell I can talk about for twenty minutes on 2/16 without getting my ass handed to me by well-meaning faculty, the always-imminent creative writing--suggests that this was the last time I can afford to waste.

While I'm talking about my thesis, I just want to note: it reminds me of why it is I ended up majoring in math (besides a long string of coincidences + a lack of direction). Even though we don't have a real logician in our math department (causing my plans for a "mathematical logic" independent study to fall through), I managed to send the thesis swerving into the territory of the abstract, the foundations of mathematics-type stuff.

And despite flinching a little every time someone mistook majoring in history and math for majoring in history of math, I couldn't avoid writing a thesis that drags with it little bits of history and pedagogy, which has always been a source of fascination.

Basically, what happened is I took a topic that was originally picked to be easy and topology-centric. The Jordan Curve Theorem is pretty well done being proved, but it isn't taught in any Pomona math class, so I was planning on using it to make an easy second thesis to complement my difficult history one (since withdrawn/dropped/cancelled). But some kind of germ of academic stubbornness has led me to write about two topics:

1. the consensus "original proof", a 1905 paper that uses all sorts of terms now meaningless and a format that needs some cleanup. The plan is to thoughtfully present the material so that it can be understood by a contemporary audience. Along the way, I often have these doubtful pauses that maybe this wasn't the consensus original proof after all, because my advisor sees things wrong with it for which I have no answer.

2. non-standard analysis, an alternative system for structuring all numbers. Invented in the 1960s, it was originally intended to clean up areas of math like calculus and modeling, but also to be the fulfillment of an intuitive notion that had been around since the 1600s. It has since fallen by the wayside, as mathematical logic is really abstact and more than a little dangerous (a surprising number of logicians over the years have committed suicide, gone crazy, etc), and so it is better left assumed in most math classes/books/careers.

So, in the last few months, a topic that seemed fairly easy, but more importantly seemed 'safe', has turned into a project that scares me, and inasmuch as it covers stuff outside our faculty's expertise, seems ambitious (though more like an overreach than an overachievement). Somehow, just by spending a little time with my subject, something mundane has become a paper that will reflect how I see math, how I wish I could do math, the way I wish I could make math stay a part of my life even though I'm never going to grad school... I get a sense of possession, of ownership. I get a sense of rightness, everything in the place it's meant to go.