Math Anxiety

For most of my life, I feared math with such a passion that I spent more energy staying away from it than I did actually trying to learn it.  It's funny how life works out, considering I'm working on a career that is immersed in math.  It took me until my mid twenties to realize that it was not as bad as I had always thought, and here is where it really gets me, I now LIKE math.  I'm still not all that good at it, it's far more subjective than anything I've ever studied with effort.  You're either right or you're wrong and there are very clear rules to follow.  It's very much like a dance where you either know the consecutive steps to follow, or you trip.  And with math, tripping is hard and painful.  

I think this is where most people falter with math.  In a world where grades can make or break your entire career path and trial and error are not a celebrated part of learning, math is a big scary failure waiting to destroy your life.  For this reason I gave it minimal contact in order to keep my grades up and push ahead.  However, once I reached a point in my life where I had everything in place, I realized that I had missed out on so many more intellectually stimulating and satisfying careers, and all of them included math.

Math uses a very different part of your brain, one that is rarely consciously utilized in day to day life.  And just like anything else, you need to exercise and use it in order to strengthen it.  Math is also something you need to stumble through in order to fully understand it.  Here's where I feel our educational system promotes mathphobia.  If you don't automatically get it, our system teaches you that you never will.  That's what I felt for years, I just wasn't a "math" person.  However, math is more like learning a foreign language than any other subject I can think of.  It involves both the build up of skills from one step to the next and thinking in a way that we don't normally do in daily tasks of life.  It is very possible for anyone to get if they try hard to learn the rules, immerse themselves inside it's world, and stumble through problems they don't get but don't quit.   All of which are particularly what you do when learning a new language.

I feel math anxiety is one of the biggest things our educational system perpetuates.  To begin, it suppresses the importance of trial and error, it teaches us that we either can already do or won't ever.  This is so sad since in reality anyone can learn almost anything (aside from things that are physically impossible like telekinesis) if you work hard for long enough.  In others words, you can learn things you're not born good at just by giving it enough of your time and energy.  That may be a heck of a lot of both, but it's still possible.

Moreover, our education system just throws you at math without a continuous build up.  They try to, but you can easily move from geometry to trigonometry without mastering any of the skills needed.  This is just dumb, as it sets you up for failure.  It wasn't until Calculus II that I had a devoted professor who worried about our background knowledge in math before plowing ahead into the world of integrals.  I actually LEARNED more about math in those few short months than I did in most of my high school career just because he showed the importance of knowing one thing to another.

Tom Lehrer in the 1950's clearly sums up how we learn math.  It seems even back then we weren't very good at teaching it.

All in all, I think my main purpose of this post is to kind of hash out how interesting it is that math is so awesome and I never knew it.  That and I wish other people could see how awesome it is as well.  Now that I am an aficionado of math, I am slowly beginning to feel it to be the most artistic and human subject of all the others (including art), particularly because of how abstract it is.

Thanks Escher.  I now agree!

The amazing Tezuka

Osamu Tezuka is specifically known in USA for his creation Astroboy which is also one of the first animes ever created.  To be completely honest, I could never get into the feel good aspect of Astroboy.  Particularly because the character designs were so cheesy retro and their personalities were in a similar tacky vein.

But herein lies the problem. Astroboy is a small blip on the Tezuka radar.  He has countless amazing works that make Astroboy pale in comparison.  It's sad that in the US he is known for this dated work when in Japan he is known as the father of modern manga (also known as the god of manga).  And it's a title he deserves.

Granted, he's no Will Eisner, who is a force that formed American comic books into a work of art, but his story telling is compelling and his style is what all of our animes and mangas of today are based off of (Big eyes, small nose, lipless mouths, etc).

The most amazing thing about him, to me, is that he was in medical school while he wrote many of his works.  That's right!  He was studying in an intensive graduate school program while making all this amazing shit for fun!  He even finished the damn degree before he began his comic career full time, but that is after years of studying and drawing professionally side by side.  Crazy!

I think that's why I find his manga series Black Jack, to be one of my favorites.  Though it's not medically accurate in many of its stories, it's about a 'rogue' doctor that goes around helping people with extreme and odd medical problems.  Tezuka's light, childish drawing style helps make the comic book digestible, as the subject matter can be fairly dark and hard to deal with, particularly if organs make you queasy.

Come to think of it, I think that's what I came to like most about Tezuka's work.  The very dark, adult content hidden behind the up-beat, simple artwork.  I feel this is what he's best known for since all ages can enjoy the same content but on different levels.

He also did an amazing series about the life of the Buddha (aptly named Buddha) following the birth, life, and death of Siddhartha Guatama.  It has a fair amount of inaccuracies if you base it upon historian research, however, it is a great introduction to Buddhist teachings as well as the historical evolution of buddhism in general.  It is also a very dark comic, with murder and other heinous acts in it, that you don't find so heavy because of his art and writing style.

So here's to you Osamu Tezuka.  I hope people take notice here in the U.S. of A. of your contribution to our culture and at least become more recognized in the comic community of today. Thank you for making so many enjoyable works that I can share randomly with others on all different levels of life.  Even if they could care less about my enthusiasm on an inane subject like comics.

Growing Older

My mother used to say when I was little that you are never the same person you were 7 years ago.  Looking back on the old posts of this blog, I can see some of the same qualities, personality, and views, however, my life is drastically altered from that person just 3 short years ago.  I'm definitely not as witty as that person, where I came up with such writing I'll never know.

As for my life, I'm now married to my sihaya which will most likely be a chapter of this blog, since it is by far a different relationship.  Good but different.

I'm also in the process of a full-time Master's in a field very different from what I've studied the past 10 years of my life.  Fisheries Stock Assessment has a much nicer ring to it than Museum Education, doesn't it?  Well, if anything, it gives me a chance to observe what a person's confused stare looks like before I get the question, "What is that?"  I guess you could say I have finally stopped running away from numbers and have embraced them fully, if a bit hesitantly.  I'm learning to be a mathematical coder, lecturer, and fish ecologist all while holding the knowledge of American art history, buddhist symbolism, and education to guide me!  Needless to say, it has been an incredible struggle, but I'm learning more and more each day; and for once, I'm generally happy in what I am accomplishing.  My work seems to have meaning and I feel better knowing that I'm not wasting my life with something I only have frustration towards.

For this degree, we've essentially moved to the sticks from a large city.  To keep myself entertained, I've become interested in the preparation of food.  I was pretty interested before but more in the nutrition aspect of it.  I've now learned the art of artisan bread, butter, and pasta making as well as a beginner's knowledge of herb growing.  This has changed my behavior in the kitchen to a point of snobbery particularly in the process of creating everything from "scratch" or their most essential ingredients up.  The fact that my sihaya has been put on a medical diet has exacerbated this into an obsession.  Looking at my posts on pescitarianism, I am back in my old stomping ground only with an arsenal of new techniques and more information than I previously had.  This time around I'm not having the fatigue or pains I did before.  It's not as restrictive as my last experiment, but it's working so much better than the bumpy road of 2009.

All in all, life is but a dream now.  I'm no longer stuck in a job I didn't care for.  I've moved my relationship with my plus 1 into the forever category.  I'm being mentally stimulated/exhausted every day.  And it's working me into a new career I could only hope for a few short years ago.

And to top it all off I'm now a master chef...or not. One can dream can't they?

A Good Example of Why We Need Healthcare Reform

I recently went to the doctor's to get a routine physical since I'm fairly new to the area and needed to update my medications with a local doctor. The doctor was friendly and requested something from me that no other doctor has ever asked for in the history of my life. A blood screening so he could see where I was medically and how to treat me the best he could. I was shocked and delighted that a doctor was willing to use preemptive care instead of just fixing things as they broke down. He gave me a slip of paper for a local laboratory to get the blood samples and told me to make an appointment once I'd gotten the tests done.

Fast forward to the lab he sent me to. I waited an hour in a cramped, broken down room (I really wonder what the facilities inside looked like) only to be told I owe a large amount of money and could either pay now or contact their billing department. When I asked what this outrageous amount of money was for, they told me they weren't a billing department so they didn't know but gave me a date 2 years ago that this apparent procedure was for. This to me came off as rather fishy. I mean, why was I being forced to pay for a unknown service and on top of that, if these people aren't a billing office why should they refuse care because of a deficit (or take payment for that matter)?

At this point I would like to add that this is not the first time this has happened to me. This is a scam that Healthcare and Medical companies pull all the time. They expect most people will pay for these faulty bills instead of spend hours on the phone trying to see what's up. It makes me sick how much they get away with it. Especially with poor families, people who work multiple jobs, and others who don't have enough time to spend rooting out the problem in the tangled mess healthcare provides. These scams are unregulated and, get this, legal. Yes, it is legal to throw so many loopholes into a system that it's virtual impossible to get out of without hours and hours of work on your part to receive adequate healthcare for a reasonable price (even if you have insurance and pay your bills on time).

As for me, I called up the laboratory billing office only to find out that they never asked for the insurance information for a small routine check up I'd had all those years ago. My doctor told me they had called them up claiming I'd told the laboratory I'd never received such work (I've never even had direct contact with this company) and after an explanation to the doctor that treated me of what the lab company was doing, they stated they'd make sure to give them all proper documentation. Everything should be sorted out but because this company has already feigned ignorance, now I must monitor them to make sure all goes as it's supposed to. It's truly amazing how much hassle it is to receive basic healthcare in this day and age, even with all the medical advances.

The saddest part is that I have an easier time working with my car insurance and cell phone provider than with my healthcare insurance. It's a sad day when it's easier to take care of your phone and car than it is yourself...

Here is another great story about essentially the same thing

Otakon 2009

In my lifetime I have been to many conventions ranging from video games and comic books to horror movie and anime. However, this was my first time at a convention that held more than 5,000 people and it was called Otakon. There were 35,000 people here this year and I was psyched to go see what Otakon could give me that smaller conventions couldn't. This happened to be absolutely nothing. It was the lamest convention I've ever been to.

Gone were the rooms to play video games or watch anime/japanese movies, the vendors that sold wares you could get no where else or at a discounted price, and booths with artists/famous people that meant something to the genre. No, this was just a giant unorganized mess of cosplayers taking pictures of each other.

None of the staff knew what was going on. All panels or activities had to do with cosplaying or J-pop and people spent more time taking pictures of costumes and posing than doing anything interesting. It was absolutely lame and I'm completely baffled by the fact that people pay over $50 for this hodge podge of social interaction. I was thoroughly disgusted with the fact they had nothing to offer a casual anime fan such as myself which would have loved to meet artists and animators as well as sit in on theater style showings of beloved animes past and present. Nope, just panels on cosplay and guess what, more cosplay!

On top of all this everything was so separated and closed by 6pm. So you were stuck in the city of Baltimore, most likely dressed like a heavier, smellier version of a favorite anime character, and nothing to do. I keep having this vision of a mugging involving a guy with a giant foam sword crying on the ground as someone runs away with his fanny pack. Ahhhh, the things I do to amuse myself.

In any case, observing the frenzy of overpriced, riduculous wares and people sitting around doing NOTHING I have decided I will stick with my smaller conventions and in fact, think I will be staying away from anime/anime fans for a while. Their conventions have so far been the most boring (looking back at Setsucon and Katsucon I must admit this) and I feel the whole community has become a mass expression of what happens when people don't get made fun of for doing stupid things...good night and good luck american otakus...no, on second thought, get a life.

Raising baby

In the past two weeks we adopted an adorable little kitten of about 12 weeks old and since then, I haven't had a moments peace at home. I know kittens are no where near as much work as a baby, but all I can think about now that I find this so stressful is whether I will truly enjoy young children. I mean, they take up more time and attention and grow up much slower than your average kitten and I'm already having a hard time with this.

I think the part I've hated most is the cat-sitting I seem to spend most of my days doing. It's exhausting and I feel like I get nothing accomplished. Don't get me wrong, the kitten is a riot to watch, for about 5 minutes, then I'd like to do other stuff like make myself a sandwich, read, play video games, etc. However, this cannot be done since she gets into EVERYTHING. Closet door open? Hm, let me start chewing on this pointy metal hanger. Look, a drinking glass! Let me taste this beverage that is not good for me. Space beneath the couch that is dangerous? Let me hide under there.

She also has this problem with harassing my other older cat. This takes the most time because I have set aside a room for the older cat to go to get away from her. This is the only place the kitten isn't allowed to go and the only place she spends most of her day trying to get into! I can't tell you how much time I've spent sitting at that door trying to do some type of work and catching a kitten that keeps trying to jump by me at the same time! If this is anything like having children I'm totally not for it. No wonder most people I know (not all) that have kids already don't usually think about their decisions before they make them...this totally seems like a bad one.

On a lighter note, perhaps it won't seem so daunting when I'm older, but for now, I'm nowhere near ready to be a parent. This kitten has been a very enlightening experience...

Brutal Legend

Another amazing looking game coming out:



Not quite sure about the whole Jack Black thing. I don't see him as very metal even with Tenacious D on his resume. The only time I've been impressed with him in is Nacho Libre where I genuinely felt he was funny (though I'm sure many people are shaking their heads at that comment). But anyway, if it's by Tim Schafer...I am feeling it will be impressive.