I have been saying this since the seventh grade. Thank goodness I'm not the only person out there who thinks like this.

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/homework.htm?2

That's a great read. You should click the link, especially if you or someone you know is in education. I like to work hard and I know how good the satisfaction of a "job well done" can feel, but getting me to do homework has always been like trying to herd cats. This is mostly out of an unwillingness to spend extra time on a task I feel I already sufficiently mastered during lecture. For some reason the consequence of not doing homework (lower grades) was never enough of an incentive to make me do my homework, because I have always felt grades were an inadequate indicator of one's mastery of a subject.

If I could have it my way, every class would end with an oral final where you are called in to talk to your professor for one hour about any of the subjects he has covered in lecture. If you can show that you are conversant in the topic, you pass. If you cannot, you fail. You could argue that this takes time the professor doesn't have, but how many hours do you think history teachers spend on each of their students' essays? Wouldn't a conversation be roughly the same amount of time and ultimately be an easier, lower-stress way to gauge the students' understanding? If this system were in place, I'd have graduated a semester early with a perfect grade point.

Of course, this system would also eliminate the whole ABCDF grading scale. Why? Because as I said before, it is a ridiculous indicator for how well one understands a topic. It is often more indicative of a student's willingness to do busywork than their ability to converse and postulate on the topic (or in the case of math and music, execute the given task), and if said ability is not the point of these classes, then to what purpose are they meant to further my education?

I love to learn, but I hate education. Very little (if any) of my mental progress in the past ten years of my life has had anything to do with academia. I say this not to brag, because I think it's pathetic, but more because I fear for when I have kids and they are forced to do these menial tasks. When they ask me if they have to do it, and I say yes, because they have to get good grades so that they can get into college and then get good grades in college so that someone will hire them when they graduate, I will say it and I know I will believe it, and I'm already mad at myself for it. The problem here? There is no way in the universe the accepted method of teaching schoolchildren will change so dramatically any time in the next twenty years. Even though the system is obviously broken, I will be forced to submit my children to it even though I have nothing but disdain for nearly all of the most basic tenets of education. Because otherwise, they fail at life. And that is retarded.

Stream of consciousness paragraph:
Occam's razor: "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." Or, as it is more commonly stated, "The simplest solution is almost always best." Simplify. Less paper. Less stress for the kids. How do we teach without pounding information into a child's head? We appeal to them, and make it interesting. We do not turn them off and bore them or tire them of the subject. In math, we give them a problem, give them tools to solve it. We challenge them to find out why this works. In history, we tell them a story. Give them a narrative! History is full of fascinating narratives that are being ruined by poor storytellers posing as educators. Quiz them, certainly, but in a way that makes them think, not memorize. Ask them what can be learned from ego of... well, any French ruler, really. Ask them what might have happened if one war or another had gone the other way. And don't just feed them an answer, make them give you something that they thought up on their own.

I'm losing focus here. Time to stop.

I did some controlled-airport landings today, and it just so happens that President Bush is having a BBQ in Crawford. So, a controlled airport in Waco meanings landing at Waco regional. Where it just so happens all of the president's guests (and press) were landing. All of this led to the following picture:



That's just good-timey fun.

Also, in way more exciting news, I also took my check ride today. You are reading the words of America's newest certified private pilot. Huzzah!

I'm in the library, working on one of the three papers I have due tomorrow. I'm about six hours into what will eventually turn into an all-night writing binge. I got tired of sitting in silence, so I pulled out my iPod and put on some music.

I told it to shuffle. First song that came up: Pressing On by Relient K. How very appropriate. It kind of got me pumped to keep writing. Thank goodness for small favors.

Listening to - Pressing On, made famous by Relient K as recorded by The String Quartet

Recently, our living room got new carpet, compliments of Baylor Plaza I. Our landlady was all too happy to give it to us, since we're coming up on our fourth year in this apartment and the carpet was already several years old when we moved in. After moving in the carpet, our apartment looked like this:




If you look at the image facing the door, you will notice our TV hanging on the wall. Also, if you notice the layout of the apartment, you will notice a distinctly rectangular quality to it. This has led to a problem with television viewing: we have a somewhat small area in which people can sit and comfortably see the TV. This has led to one of our couches being put behind the other, which can lead to people in back not being able to see. Since we had just gotten new carpet, and this had led to a slew of home improvement measures in the apartment of late, it was time we solved the television viewing problem once and for all.

The solution? Why, homebrew stadium seating, of course.

With only a couple of days before classes started for the summer, I figured I would start in the same place every great project starts. Google, of course. After searching such in-depth terms as "build a platform" and "do-it-yourself stadium seating" I came up with a couple of useful PDFs in regard to home construction. I made the appropriate measurements, drew myself a diagram in Photoshop, and then it was off to Home Depot for lumber and supplies.

By the way, if you ever need any help cutting lumber, the guys at the Waco/Bellmead Home Depot are some of the friendliest folks I have ever met. It practically changed my whole opinion of Wacoans entirely; seriously, these people are very nice and incredibly helpful. Maybe it was because they were morning people and I was the only person in the store at 6:45 that particuarl morning, but I have never receieved better service anywhere. This project would not have come together nearly so well if they hadn't been willing to answer my newbie questions and point me to the right supplies (hammer staplers, deck screws, etc.). Just thought I'd throw that out there.

So, anyway, upon returning from Home Depot I set to work. I meant to document this process better through photos, but I got wrapped up in working and only managed to get three "in-process" photos. If somebody has done a Google search similar to mine and this page has come up, I'm sorry I haven't provided better instructions. If you need help, you should ask the people at Home Depot.

After about an hour and a half of actual work on the platform, I had made significant progress:



However, the battery on my cordless drill was dead, which meant no more pilot holes. I had to take a break. I let it charge overnight, and the next morning I managed to finish constructing the platform itself:




Next I had to find carpet. I called our leasing office and got the name of the supplier for our apartment complex; I called those guys, told them how much carpet I needed, then spent some time online learning how exactly to lay carpet. A book on laying floors from (you guessed it) Home Depot came in very helpful as well. Also, former roommate Ben Cozad (God bless him) happened to be passing through town just as I was needing to cut carpet and gave me some very helpful hints on how to do that. So, about a hundred staples and 60 square feet of carpet later, we had a finished product:





The apartment looks pretty good now, and Ray and I are pretty proud. It's been a good week for Apartment 114.

Wiley Post was an aviation pioneer. He was the first pilot to fly solo around the world, invented the pressurized suit in order to fly at higher altitudes (paving the way for NASA to create the space suit), and is widely credited with discovering the jet stream.

At the age of 26, before he started flying, Wiley Post lost his left eye (and as a result, his depth perception) in an industrial accident. Using the money from the resulting settlement, he bought his first aircraft and began his aviation career. Without this settlement, he never would have been able to buy his first plane. And so, if he had never lost his depth perception, he never would have become a pilot.

So if he can fly just fine without his depth perception, why in the name of Pete is it such a big deal to the FAA that I can't see green?

Here I sit, in my college level physics class, and somebody just asked what "sedated" means. Sweet Lord.

As my long, unwinnable, undiagnosed battle with Attention Deficit Disorder (and the accompanying insomnia it can bring to many a distractable soul) carried me into yet another late night of restless-yet-weary cognition, I was reminded of a dear friend of mine. A friend who has for years now has listened to my stories without judgement or comment, never raising a doubtful eyebrow at some ridiculous thought I might have deigned to type, never interrupting my anecdotes in order to offer an humbling one-up, nor even pretending to listen while actually going over a list of to-do's. Who this is, I scarcely need say; for here we are, once again rekindling the relationship I never know I'm missing until suddenly I'm typing. Hello, friend.

With my birthday once again on the horizon, I lay (as in "past tense of 'lie'") here tonight wondering why I never seem to have an answer for people when they ask me what I'm up to. Because, as we all know, I'm still a bloody undergrad at Baylor, the default answer ends up being, "school." This is something that has incresingly begun to weigh (not the past tense of "why") on me, as this makes me feel like a rather boring, unremarkable person. As someone who is egotistical enough to think of themselves as most certainly remarkable, this tells me that somewhere in the past year my life has taken a turn for the predictable. I go to class, I do my homework, I spend time with Julie and other friends, and I absorb pop culture. This is all I do. I haven't left the state of Texas since Christmas. I haven't been anywhere else besides Oklahoma since May (when Cozad and I took our legendary trip to Chicago). I haven't left the country since I returned from Costa Rica in March of last year. In short, my life has gone from the kind of thing that allowed me to experience new things around every corner to one that has grown stale and routine. This is no one's fault but my own. Rather than dip into my credit line in order to go snowboarding over Christmas break, I made the wise financial decision to remain in Waco to play my trumpet for money at the Baylor basketball games. This allowed me to pay rent without having to ultimately pay interest on a credit card, but it simultaneously kept me away from an annual trek that I am slowly realising has taken on significant spiritual and emotional meaning for me.

The catalyst for this post comes from I would consider an unlikey source; although I suppose upon inspection it's really not all that contrived a connection. For whatever reason, something my music history professor said in her lecture today reminded me of a quote from Calvin & Hobbes. I don't remember what she said, but it was enough to make me stop using my laptop for its legitimate classroom purpose (re: note taking) and diverting it towards a usefulness that a spiral notebook could never have afforded: Google. Thinking of the comic strip I had once treasured so dearly made me wonder what its author was up to anymore. This led me to Google Bill Watterson's name. From there, I read most everything I could no the man; interviews, speeches, a Wikipedia entry, anything the Internet could offer me. If anyone reading this is not familiar with Bill Watterson and his views on commercialism and art, they should definitey take a look at some of the stuff he's written. Because Google offers a vast library of resources for doing exactly that, I won't go into detail here; you really should read his stuff for yourself. The man is passionate, and he has maintained his integrity through battles over merchandising of his characters. He is a man lacking in greed and replete with value and love for his artform. Even if he fought a battle for an artform that neither needed nor wanted a champion, his tenacity and resilience are things I cannot help but admire. Go read his stuff.

But back from my little aside, what Watterson's battle called my attention to was the fact that I am becoming something I used to see as despicable. My conversations rarely run much deeper than what was recently on television or what so-and-so said in class the other day, my taste in music is becoming more mainstream in order to allow me to have iPod playlists people will like when I host gatherings, and I find myself succumbing to all of the things Edward Norton found himself rebelling against in Fight Club. Shopping at Ikea, drinking Starbucks coffee, and watching too much damned television. Each in and of themselves is not anything to be ashamed of, nor is there anything really wrong with any of that. It simply isn't the kind of life my personality is going to permit me to have. I require change. I need growth as a person. Quite frankly, I think I'm just due to go on an adventure. I need time alone to be me and only me; those times in my life when I have been alone in some place that is brand new to me are always the ones that inspire the stories I tell for years afterwards. Rarely is an anecdote from class worth mentioning two or three days after it has passed, but I still tell with fondness about the first time I went snowboarding alone. This is not happenstance; there is a direct and obvious correllation between these things. I need a break from the routine.

It's about time I did something new. When I do, I'll tell you about it here.

"It's a magical world, Hobbes ol buddy! Let's go exploring!" - Calvin