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| In developmental psychology we were taught about two main types of students.
- Type 1: This student was praised for effort he put into his work. As a result, the reward the student gets is from the effort itself and not what comes out of the work. This student believes that just trying something is worthy. He also enjoys being challenged.
- Type 2: This student was praised for doing well. As a result, the reward the student gets is from the outcome of the work. This student believes that working hard is no indication of intelligence and often will instead believe that intelligence is doing something well without effort. This student is often frustrated by challenges and tends to give up easily.
I have very much determined that I'm the 2nd type of student. This isn't a choice thing, it's how I was unintentionally raised. It makes decent sense in a school system where grades are very important. Unfortunately, throughout my education, I've had the idea in my head that if I'm smart enough, it should be easy.
Now, this wouldn't really be a problem if it were only pertaining to my personal conception of my own intelligence, but more often than not it also spreads to my conceptions of other people's intelligences. The worst part is that I'll recognize consciously that someone can be highly intelligent even if they can't solve some problem that I've solved, but in the back of my mind that thought is there and I can't ever fully block it out. It always makes me feel so damn arrogant and I hate that.
It reminds me of this one episode of House where a man who gets sent to a hospital says whatever he's thinking. His wife gets all upset because he says all these mean things to her and she says that even if he doesn't mean to say them aloud he's thinking that and that's not the person she thought she married. The problem I find with this is that the guy normally makes full effort to block out these thoughts. He's fully aware that what he's thinking is not appropriate. Should he still be punished for the thoughts that are beyond his control?
My conception of this situation is that our base thoughts, that mostly are derived from our subconscious, are a result of our upbringing. As we went through development, we learned this very basic conception of good/bad, right/wrong. The final thought, our conscious thought, is what we've actively learned. The base thought isn't really so much our thoughts but other people's thoughts that were placed upon us. Our final thought is the thought that we made as fully conscious adults.
Now, this isn't to say that the base thought has to be different from the final thought. What I'm trying to get at is that when they do differ, the final thought, to me, is much more important. It's a recognition of the problematic nature of something we learned while we were developing. It's our conscious effort to right a mental wrong.
I guess I'm just attempting to justify to myself that it's not really my fault for thinking the way I do about certain things if I recognize that those base thoughts are wrong.
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| One of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given was "know your triggers". Brad Smith is a smart man. I spent a good portion of that day trying to figure out what my triggers were. Being in such a good mood at the time, I couldn't quite place something that would get me so agitated that my heart rate would actually go up. Luckily for me, some people never cease to amaze me and I, slowly but surely, found out a good number of things that really hit a nerve.
Today I decided that the most frustrating thing in the world is when
people are so deluded by their conceptions about something that they
find it necessary to convince other people that they're not alone in
their ignorance. So many people just blindly talk about things that
they know absolutely nothing about. Badminton is a great example. I take badminton so seriously sometimes I think people don't enjoy playing with me. It kills me that in order to prove that I play sports I have to mention soccer or volleyball. Ties have been severed over badminton. No lie. When people think of badminton they usually think of backyard awkward hitting. This is what I think of when I think of badminton. Fastest racket sport in the world. My absolute passion.
Occasionally I try to figure out why it is that I get so frustrated with some people. Every now and then I notice that I complain. A lot. Actually I usually feel sorry for the people who end up being the victims of my rantings. I've come to the conclusion that I have too much faith in other people. I'm kind of like a gymnastics judge. People start out with a perfect 10 and every infraction is a deduction from there. More often than not I just end up getting disappointed. It's not that I try to find fault in people. I would very much love to be so impressed with everyone that nothing bothered me. It's those damn triggers.
People who know me know that I'm very opinionated. Generally if it seems like I don't have an opinion, it's just because I don't feel like sharing my opinion at the time and/or my opinion will get me in trouble. I always have something to say about everything. See, that's my problem. When given the opportunity to speak my mind, I can't not say exactly what I thinking. I don't have a strong filter. My virtue and my vice is that I'm not afraid of saying what I believe to be true. The worst part about that is that once I start going, usually everything comes out. All thoughts surface. Kind of like this post. All those things that you're not supposed to say to someone... Yeah, I usually say them. One of these days that's going to get me into insurmountable trouble.
The idea with triggers is that once you know what they are, you're supposed to recognize them and then stop yourself from letting them affect you. My issue is that I know what some of them are, and I recognize them when they occur, but I do nothing to stop them. They result in probably a very unhealthy catharsis. Like writing in a xanga entry.
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| en français:
J'ai dépensé trop de temps pour cette "composition", mais je suis assez fière.
Comme Deux Mondes
Je vous parle d'une infestation
Dans le monde et toutes ses nations
Une maladie de la société
Contre laquelle personne n'est immunisé
Quelqu'un a toujours tort
Ça, c'est l'explication des morts
C'est la cause de la guerre
Maintenant, qu'est-ce qu'on peut faire?
"Vous êtes avec nous ou contre nous"
Ce n'est pas ce que j'ai cru
Quand est-ce qu'on aura la paix?
Peut-être après l'enfer est plus frais
Vous pensez que tout est noir ou blanc?
Ici on peut être très, très franc
Cette idée est ridicule
Alor, prenez le bâton dans votre cul
in english:
I spent too much time on this "composition" (for french class), but I'm pretty proud.
(rough translation and without the awesome rhyming in french)
Like Two Worlds
I'm talking about an infestation
In the world and all its nations
A sickness of society
Against which no one is immune
Someone is always wrong
That's the explanation of all the deaths
It's the cause of war
Now what can one do?
"You're with us or against us"
That's not what I thought
When will there be peace?
Maybe when hell freezes over
You think that everything's black or white?
Let me be very, very honest
That idea's ridiculous
So take that stick out of your ass
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| What is it about the way things are in this world that make life happy or sad? How is it that we decide at one moment or another that we really feel the way we do? For the most part everything can be seen as relative. Something is better than something else or something is worse than something else. How can you tell whether or not something is absolutely good or absolutely bad? For the worst things or best things you ever will experience, how do you know there's nothing better or worse?
I guess in some ways it doesn't even really matter about the absolutes. We can't even really understand them anyway. As far as we know, we live on a day to day basis. Most people really only think about how one action will affect them at that moment in time. If we all had the ability to tell whether or not something we did could affect our futures, chances are we'd never really do anything. There's no telling what sort of things will affect others. Each moment is a compilation of choices that each person makes. Even if one person knew one possible result of an action that they would make, they have no control over the actions other people make. Ultimately they're still bounded by a future that they cannot control.
There was a book I read back in high school that I can't quite remember the title or author of, but it had something to do with fate. Some of the people in the class were saying that the writing was about people having no choice in life because they're already fated to do something. All I remember is saying that it wasn't so much that people didn't have any choice. People are given opportunities at certain moments and it is their decision, their free will, to decide whether or not they want to take that choice. It is fate, then, that someone might meet someone but it is free will to decide to talk to him/her. Sometimes I like to think that there is such a thing as fate. That the seemingly random conveniences that result in my happiness or sadness are actually provided to me by some sort of higher power beyond my control. There have been so many chains of events in my life thus far that just seem so "lucky". That if it were to occur by accident, I must have the best luck in the world. And while I consider myself to be rather lucky when it comes to gambling or that sort of thing, I like to think that the world works on higher degrees than simple probabilities.
What is the probability of something happening in life? If you think about it, you have a high probability of nothing special happening. Your day to day routine is a routine because it is highly probable that it will be the same. If this is true, then the probability of something special is very very small. This would mean that in your lifetime, chances are that something special will only happen to you once in your lifetime. Yet, these "once in a lifetime" opportunities and chances generally happen more than once in a lifetime. Maybe not the same opportunity, but something equally improbable. What, then, provides that change? In math they give you examples like, the probability of you meeting a celebrity today is some very small number. But given that you are in Hollywood, that probability is much higher. What is that given value that makes our lives more interesting?
Sometimes I wish that I could just understand everything about how the world works. In some ways I feel like I'd appreciate it that much more but in other ways perhaps I'd be thoroughly disappointed. But aside from that, I don't even think I'd be able to fully comprehend it even if I were given all the knowledge of the world. And sometimes part of the beauty of something is the wonder of it. Often times I find myself fascinated by something not because I know exactly what it is or how it works but because I wish I knew. Even after knowing, it's not as exciting as the wanting to know about it. It's the desire to know more that makes things interesting in a lot of ways. If you knew everything about a person, like what they like and what they would say, what use is it to have a conversation? You talk to people because you want to know what they would think. Conversations generally end when people run out of things to say.
If this is my conversation with you, how does it end? Have I run out of things to say? Perhaps I'll just say that there will be another time and another conversation. But for now, I'll sit and enjoy the sound of the rain drumming against the window.
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| This semester by far has surprised me beyond belief. Never before have I really sat and thought that I was in the right field until this moment. Now that all the general computer science courses have been over and done with, I can finally get into the subjects that really interest me. I feel so motivated these days to actually learn and soak up as much as possible. I've come to the point where I really want to be a better student and try as hard as I can. It finally matters to me.
I decided that I'm going to try to stay on top of things this time. I'm going to actually read when I'm supposed to and get things done earlier. At this point, after cracking open my Artificial Intelligence book for the first time, I find myself so interested in the origins and applications of the subject that I want to read more. The basis for artificial intelligence goes back so far in history and ties into so many disciplines that, really, it applies to everything. I've never been so fascinated by a topic before.
Every Tuesday and Thursday I have three lectures in a row that are all an hour and a half long: Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, and History of California. In each of those lectures, not only have I not found myself falling asleep (which is actually quite impressive in my book), but I end each class feeling so intellectually stimulated. As nerdy as it sounds, I love ending my Tuesdays and Thursdays with almost a headache because I've soaked up so much knowledge.
I've gotten to a point in my educational career (although it's almost at its end now) where I really do just want to learn. Grades no longer really matter anymore. Naturally I don't want to fail the class, but at the same time I'm not stressed about whether or not my grade in the class will ruin the rest of my life because I know that it won't. I actually feel content with my life, as different as it is now from the ideal situation I was hoping I would be in at this stage. Lately I've been doing a lot of big picture thinking. Instead of going for the little things, like a specific internship or a certain grade, I've just been trying to do what makes me the happiest. Granted I may not be as successful as some, or as successful as I could be, I really feel like I'm actually doing what matters now. I'm trying to find my true passions in life and I think I already found a couple of them.
This past summer I was at a tech camp for kids, teaching them how to make video games. For seven weeks, I felt so at peace teaching. Even though there were times where so many circumstances made things incredibly stressful for me, it was always so rewarding. I had always believed that after I got married I would eventually quit the computer science field and enter the world of education and teach math. At this point I'm still somewhat undecided about whether I would teach high school or middle school. I had the hardest time with some of the high schoolers at camp but I also had some of the more interesting conversations and teaching experiences with them. I had a relatively easy time with the middle schoolers and had a lot of fun with them but tended to have very general conversations. I don't really need to worry about this now, though. It'll be years until I'll have to actually think about it seriously.
Aside from teaching, as you may already have figured out, I've really gotten into learning. The other day I was at lab working on a simple tutorial in Python and found myself getting so excited about getting my code to work. I was sitting at my computer with my friend and giggling about how I added in extra print statements that make the code more personal. I most likely took what would normally have taken me 45 minutes and turned it into a 90 minute code session. It's times like those when I really feel like I'm in the right major.
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