Life as an Extreme Sport

Category: University of Washington

Classes taken while a student at the University of Washington, my alma mater.

Friday Five

...and everything else, CHID 492, Thesis, Winter 06

The Friday Five is a LJ question list. Every Friday, five new questions are asked, generally on a related theme, and you answer them in your own journal. The ones for this Friday got me thinking, a bit, as they were about teachers. Things like who were your favourite teachers, what they taught, your best memories…

Mr. Wright was my 6th grade CORE teacher; CORE was basically your English and History class, taught by the same teacher. Math, PE, etc — taught by different teachers, so you rotated classes every 50 minutes or so. (On top of that we rotated schedule daily, too — if class was ABCDEF one day, the next it was BCDEFA the next, and so on — but I digress). CORE was an attempt to keep up around one person a little longer, and make sure there was someone to help with our basic writing skills, etc.

6th grade was my first year in public school; I had been in a private Christian school from kindergarten through 5th grade, and in addition to very small classes, we were encouraged to work at our own speed. For all intents and purposes, by the time I was in 3rd grade, I was reading and writing at a 12th grade level, and the next two grades were a chance to finesse my skills rather than build on them. (I would often spend the entire day in the library, those last two years, curled up in a chair and reading.) So coming into the public school system was a bit of a shock. I hadn’t originally tested into the gifted and talented (GATE) program, I apparently missed the cutoff margin by a few points, but after two weeks of “regular” class, the teacher begged them to transfer me. Guess I was a bit of a troublemaker… So I had the double fun of joining a new school and having all my classes change on me, to move me into an area where it was hoped I’d be more challenged. It wasn’t my idea of fun.

Mr. Wright, on the other hand, was. For one, he thought our textbooks were useless, so instead would assign us to go do independent research on a subject, and then come back and teach the rest of the class about what we learned. I remember choosing to research about the black death, and having a lot of fun explaining in graphic detail what the various forms of the disease did to you. We’d have about a month to research, and then a week to teach the material, and then our choice of test or paper to decide how well everyone learned the subject.

His big focus, though, was social activism. Over the course of the year, we would spend time in class preparing sandwiches to give out to the homeless people in downtown San Jose. We would organize food drives, and spend our evenings in the National Guard Armory soup kitchens. This was the year of the Tianamen Square massacre in China, and we raised funds to build a replica State of Liberty for the students in China, wrote stories and poems, drew pictures, and did what we could to bring more and continued awareness to the situation. The poem I wrote and illustrated was picked out of everyone’s to be framed and displayed in Norm Mineta’s office; I hear it moved with him when he was given a position in the Bush Administration and moved to DC.

Mr. Wright was a dreamer. One of the other things he believed strongly in was the importance of computers. He ran a BBS, the Chalkboard, and encouraged us to turn our homework in via computer. If we didn’t have a computer or modem, he would longterm lend us a dterm and modem (150/300 baud — woo). He was convinced it was how the classroom was going to change, and what homework was going to move towards — much to the scorn of the majority of the faculty. He and my father really got along, at least on that front…

Mrs. Callahan was my 7th grade GATE CORE teacher. She was bored with textbooks, too, so she had us cover the walls of our classroom with butcher paper, and draw in a new planet. We had to study planet formation to understand this, from gravity to rain forests and ecosystems. Once we finished that assignment, we learned how to fill out job applications, and the jobs we were applying for were on a spaceship traveling to this new planet. The rest of that year, everything we did was framed in the context of this spaceship, our job, the new planet. It was kind of cheesy, and I remember a lot of us being a bit embarrassed by the entire idea (myself included). But at the same time, it was a lot of fun…

She was the first teacher I had who wasn’t “normal”. And by normal I mean, she seemed cool to us kids. She had tinted purple hair, dressed in what I now realize were sort of new romantic clothes, and she liked a lot of the same music we did — Depeche Mode, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran. She was another social thinker, liberal and passionate. I remember her bringing in a taped performance of Michael Jackson singing “Man in the Mirror” and after making us watch this, led us in an analysis of the lyrics and what the point would be behind singing such a song. About how it is we go about making change.

I don’t remember all of my teachers, of course, but I remember a lot of them. Mrs. Stone was the teacher assistant in 2nd grade; she and I have the same birthday. She would always find me, after that year, on our birthday, and bring me a cupcake. Played a mean game of tetherball, too! Mrs. W (she was Polish and we never even tried to pronounce her last name) was the aide for 3rd thru 5th grade, and took those of us “advanced” students aside for math for a few years. I was developing my rather smartass attitude by 4th grade, and she made some comment to another student about how she wasn’t going to take lip from anyone shorter than her. Well, at that point I was already a good few inches taller than her, and also standing by her at the board working out a math problem. I remember her whipping around before I could get more than a smirk out, and telling me that she wouldn’t take lip from anyone taller, either, and she could still break my kneecaps if she needed to. It cracked me up, and I see a lot of my current rather sarcastic attitude as her filtered through me.

Mrs. Cobb taught the smallest class I was ever in, a joint 5th/6th grade class. My fostered sister was in that class, as well as several people I had become good friends with — but there were still only about 14 students. This was the year of practical jokes, of rubber cementing everything to her desk, fishing wire to rig drawers to fly open. Of sitting in Mrs. Cobb’s bright red pickup, listening to Simon and Garfunkel — music she wasn’t allowed to bring into the Christian classroom, but she thought we needed to hear, anyhow. I guess I never really thought, before, about the fact that she taught with music, but she did, constantly. We were always going out to listen to something or another, stereo thumping, trying to hide from the principle.

The brief time I was in high school, I didn’t have any teachers that really made a difference to me, or really even much of an impression. But the vice principal liked me, and would frequently catch me cutting class to hang out in the computer lab or library. We struck a deal — I stop cracking the school grading system, and he wouldn’t turn me in to attendance. I suspect it was his affection would kept me from getting into a lot of trouble when I blew up the science lab…all three times. He knew I was bored, and knew why, and really pushed for me to graduate early and get my butt on to college. Probably one of the better decisions anyone ever pushed me into.

I guess the seeds were planted early. I think back on these teachers with great fondness and a lot of memories, but I also see bits of them in me. The way Mrs. W would use sarcasm to defuse a situation, using current media events and social causes to teach with from Mrs. Callahan and Mr. Wright, how what’s in a book doesn’t mean much if you can’t connect it to the outside world. That you need to tolerate the people who learn in all kinds of different ways, and that independent research and then turning around to teach it to someone else is the best way to learn. I suppose I have a strong pedigree, only strengthened by the last few years in CHID.

getting comfortable in my own skin

Academics, CHID 496 - Stargate!, Winter 06

On Monday night, I received the following in a fortune cookie, at the end of my “omg I need protein now SUSHI!” dinner – yes, Japanese restaurant, fortune cookie with the bill. I don’t question these things anymore, I just go with it.

Anyhow, the fortune read:

Use your abilities at this time to stay focused on your goal. You will succeed.

Now, knocking the typical and childish “in bed” stuff that you’re supposed to tack on to the end of these, it was a rather…resonating fortune. You see, I had one of those moments in class earlier Monday night.

Monday’s show had us watching Meridian, the Stargate SG-1 episode where Daniel is, as usual, incredibly noble and heroic -and he “dies” for his efforts. Or to be more precise, he is dying, and instead of doing that, as he flatlines he ascends to a different plane of existence. If you’re not a Stargate SG-1 fan, don’t worry about this – it’s a vaguely Buddhist tone the show took for a while.

I paired this show with some readings on medical ethics as a whole. The two major schools of decision making, deductive and inductive, and readings on death and dying and what it means to have a good death. There was a lot of material to read, and of course we didn’t have time to go over it all. And because of other news, I wasn’t as prepared as I like to be for class, so I ended up asking the kids what they wanted to talk about, and the answer was medical ethics.

I had printed out information on Tirhas Habtegiris for the students to read, and we ended up using this case to discuss ethics, and particularly deductive ethics. I swiped Charles to help write on the board, and we ran down the four principles of medical ethics (autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice) and using deductive logic and Kantian ethics, ran through the case as if we were an ethics committee.

At one point, I was joking with one of the students about…something, I don’t even remember what, and I made a crack about being an ethicist…and then I stopped, and realized and said “well, I guess this is what I’m trained for, isn’t it? I suppose I am an ethicist.”

It doesn’t sound like much to type out, but it simultaneously brought about a significant pause in time, one of those things where time warps and extends itself while my reality shifted and I almost physically snapped into my body/self and awareness. I was hyper-aware of everything, and in that hyper-awareness was a sense of self confidence in my ability, both as an ethicist and a teacher. It was a surreal and awesome moment, one that once time resumed its course, I laughed off with a “how weird is that” and moved class forward. But the feeling has stayed with me, a new poise, and it feels good.

Grieving Baboons Comforted By Friends

...and everything else, Thesis

Female baboons that suffer the loss of a close friend or relative turn to other baboons for comfort and support, according to a new study that encompassed 14 years of observing over 80 free-ranging baboons in Botswana’s Okavango Delta.

The study provides the first direct evidence that certain animals mourn the loss of individuals, even when the rest of their social group remains intact. The findings also suggest that friendship may be just as important to some primates as it is for humans.

Researchers particularly were struck by the behavior of one female chacma baboon (Papio hamadryas ursinus) named Sylvia, who was described as “the queen of mean” and disdainful of other baboons until she lost her daughter, Sierra, to a lion kill.

“In the week after Sierra died, Sylvia was withdrawn,” said Anne Engh, who led the project. “When the other females were grooming and socializing, she tended to sit alone and rarely interacted even with her other relatives.”

Engh, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, added, “After a week or two of moping around, Sylvia suddenly initiated grooming with several low-ranking females. I think that they were as surprised as I was ”” they seemed awfully nervous at first. Eventually, Sylvia settled into close relationships with a very low-ranking female and with Sierra’s daughter, Margaret.”

Engh explained to Discovery news that grooming is a friendly behavior where baboons clean each other’s fur.

Similar to two human friends chatting over a drink, the activity seems to relax the participants to the point where it can lower stress hormone levels. Those levels rise in humans and baboons after a close friend or relative dies.

The researchers measured a group of such hormones, called glucocorticoids, in Sylvia and 20 other females. Baboons that experienced losses did have elevated levels of the hormones after the deaths.

In humans, this is associated with bereavement, so it is likely that baboons also grieve their dead.

Patient, Kind, Without Envy or Pride

Academics, life and living, Thesis

Did your mother ever tell you, when you were upset and sulking, to just smile and everything would be alright? To “turn that frown upside down” – a sentiment that always seemed so silly and irritatingly cliche, guaranteed to make me snarl more than anything else. Yet, in another one for the “things Mom was right about” column, it really works. Not necessarily turning a frown upside down, but acting in ways that might seem counter-intuitive to how you feel changing your mood. It’s the physicality of affect; how our bodies react is tied to how we feel. Don’t believe me? The next time you’re angry with someone you care about, give them a good hug, and see how you feel – dollars to donuts your anger cracks and you smile and, while holding them, remember how much you care and dissipate out a lot of the negative feelings.

It’s interesting, and fascinating for me on the academic level, but also relevent on the personal. In order to follow the maxim of living with no regrets, I have to be a lot more open to vulnerability than I find comfortable. I have to think about how I behave and what would hang over me to cause regret; at least once recently this has meant forsaking a pointed exit to return for a hug and kiss goodnight. And as a I noted recently, I apparently can’t be irritated with someone if I’m helping out on a project – I get too caught up in the fun of what I’m doing to be able to hold onto the negative, or do anything other than experience the joy of the work.

It’s good for me, I think, to learn to let go of the negative emotions – to acknowledge their existence but not become attached to them. I’ve always been good at nursing a grudge; a holdover from being an overt drama-queen. Grudges help when you need that self-righteous drama to defend yourself from getting close to or with anyone. It’s not who I want to be anymore, but who I do want to be is someone who needs a really strong core of inner strength, and I wonder if I really have it. Can I actually be so open, so vulnerable, and live the life I want to, damned the consequences? Because the consequences will be hurting and pain and people letting me down and all sorts of negative things – can I live the way I want, in the face of all that? I don’t know, I guess I’m afraid to.

And if I do, if I can, how do I know when it’s okay to draw the line? When to say “yes, I love you, but I can’t be around you because it’s hurting me too much, and I need to take care of myself”? …I suppose as I type that out, I realize it for the cop-out that it is: I managed to say that and enforce it with Mars, so why couldn’t I do it with anyone else? (It’s amusing how much that has become a barometer for my life; I lived through X, I can do/get through Y, Z, and the rest of the damned alphabet.)

Intellectually, I know that a life lived in fear is a life half-lived. It doesn’t change how I feel, but maybe it should change how I emote – and then just trust that feelings, as always, will follow the emotive.

Intellectual Jacking Off

...and everything else, Academics, Thesis

I’m at a loss for intelligent things to say this evening, largely because they’ve already been said. I spent what might just be the most productive two hours of this quarter bouncing around ideas with Adam, and have solidified key aspects of my thesis. While this is what I was hoping would come from a session like this, I’m still astonished at the productivity and accomplishment. After editing out side commentary, sarcasm, and secondary conversation, I still have five pages of notes to turn into a coherant document – and, in my not at all humble or detached opinion, it’s stellar stuff; a revisiting of what [societal] we know in separate intellectual spheres but haven’t pulled together into a cohesive whole.

I cannot reiterate enough just how thankful I am to be working with Adam on this process. He surprises me; so often he acts like the dumb fratboy that I forget he has a whip-smart mind and is frighteningly intelligent. But more than thankful, I’m just happy – I haven’t had the chance to wax academia for hours on end with a – what? An equal? A colleague? However you want to phrase it, someone at my ‘level’ of knowledge and esoteria – in I can’t remember how long. It’s wonderful to feel this excited about school and my thesis, and just the re-energizing I needed. I only hope that I can return the favour several-fold in kind.