Exploding Penguin on the Blog Post

As you are about to witness, the title of this post has, simultaneously, everything and nothing to do with the actual subject of the post. The subject of my post is.....[dramatic pause]....[dramatic background music]....CALCULUS! Now, before you run away either to get away from the horrid subject of calculus or to go get your TI-89 for any math problems I might include, I should tell you that this is a rather unconventional view on the subject. Many people, including a few of my fellow bloggers, either love or hate calculus for the basic reason that it is math and, therefore, requires some sort of brain function that does not come easily to all. I enjoy calculus because it is an absolutely wonderful class for doodling.

Math is a very example-/problem-intensive class. Often times, the majority of the class is spent doing practice problems or watching the teacher go through examples. Initially, everyone who is not already aware of the concept in question must pay strict attention as it is presented and justified. It may take anywhere from 1 to 100 examples for the idea to really sink in. However, there will come a point when you understand the concept so well that you could not possibly understand it any better unless the brain of the man who invented it was transplanted into your skull. When you reach this point, there is little left to do. The examples are helpful, but tedious once the concept is properly grasped. It takes a supreme effort to pay attention and force the repetition. That is the point when the mind begins to wander. That is the point that Dominic and I found yesterday (again).

As you might guess, the answer to the almost certain boredom of calculus and a variety of other classes is doodling. This can be either productive or decidedly unproductive. Productive doodling is most often seen in history classes or similar literature-/story-intensive classes where it is possible to illustrate concepts. Calculus is not one of those classes, but it does have one advantage: worksheets. Worksheets always mean time in class to work on said worksheets and, most times, collaboration is encouraged so that students can check each other. In the common tongue of students, this translates to "type A free time." This is where the doodling comes in.

*Type A free time is essentially the kind in which you appear to be working diligently while getting no significant amount of work done. Note in the above picture that only about 1/3 of the worksheet is finished - the amount of possible work that can be done in the average time that the teacher spends at your desk watching you do it.

The latest calc masterpiece began with the rather pointless labels at the top. All those who are amused by it should thank Dominic for starting that. Surprisingly, most of the drawings do have some connection to our class. Gandalf's staff came from the dark mark made by the staple on the worksheet this was copied from, in case you were wondering. Two Gandalfs and one marshmallow Balrog were drawn on the powerpoint notes as well (thank you to verydemotivational.com for the ideas on asymptotes). The rest of the drawings should be fairly self explanatory - in this case meaning that you will understand it or understand that we were bored and we don't need reasons for it looking like that. The Sparta jokes are there courtesies of inspiration by epicwinftw.com and the deliriously bored state we were in.

By far, the best picture on there is Davy Jones Crocket. I can't honestly say why Davy Jones was relevant to writing the proof for the chain rule, but a classmate of ours was attempting to reference Davy Jones and couldn't remember his name. He, apparently, confuses Davy Jones and Davy Crockett. However, due to our sudden genius (or insanity), there is now Davy Jones Crocket, King of the Wild West of the Carribean, and no one need ever reference either one separately. Before you mention it, I do realize that "Carribean" is supposed to be "Caribbean," but someone who shall remain nameless told me to spell it wrong. I am now in the process of creating the mystical land of the Carribean. Feel free to add your ideas to the comments. The laws of physics need not apply.

And now an earlier masterpiece: All Your Donut (so named by Dom).

I was attempting to do lit homework in calc, but obviously that didn't happen. Dr. Who references and donut impersonations are much more fun.

I hope you enjoyed the fruits of our delirium.

~Minister of Silly Posts

Umm....Help?

For some reason, my new post was mistakenly posted under 2/3/10 instead of 2/5/10. I really don't understand this at all considering I did it literally two minutes ago and it should read 2/5/10 5:20pm. But anyway, my post is down there if you care to read it.

~The Minister of Silly Posts

Blog-Stretching Time

In response to recent pressures those of us on this blog have gone through, I must address the vicious cycle that is senior year. First of all, we are all quite sick of school by now. We're sick of teachers who can't teach and teachers who think their class is so important that they can give hours of homework and assume that you can ignore other classes (this is particularly annoying in classes such as Calculus or Health which I will never use in my current career path). We're sick of not having time for our beloved nerdy/geeky things such as video games and webcomics (or two novels stuck in the planning stages in my case). Most of all, we're sick of dumb people in our classes.

Senior year is also annoying from a social point of view, particularly right now. For one thing, we have no time to be social and actually *gasp* have fun. I can list several things I want to do with my friends that will be postponed indefinitely because of this idiotic work. One of these things was supposed to be started two months ago *cough* TCRH *cough*, but school has stabbed it in the metaphorical heart. The second annoying thing that I feel I must mention is prom. The venue for prom was announced recently and now the school has come down with prom fever (I'm sure this is a real and classifiable disease considering the consistency of the symptoms and the general unhealthy effects on wallet contents and single people). Anyway, in the week or two since the announcement I have probably heard the word "prom" 200 times and I have been dragged into the seemingly-satanic ritual of "finding a date." I won't be able to make coherent sentences if I get started on that, so I'll skip it. Use your imagination. In short, prom is an event that, if it were not so overly glorified, would be extremely exciting and fun. However, in similar spirit of any holiday, the prom season begins far too far away from the event itself to hold my interest for that long. Last year, I took to ignoring it until a time I deemed reasonable to think about it. Unfortunately, this year it won't work due to the fact that it's our senior prom and I am actually obligated to find a date this year. Imagine the hype of previous years and multiply by infinity.

Before I go on, I feel I must mention that I actually am excited for prom and I will go. My issue with it is the sheer amount of shallow chatter it generates.

Now that I have deviated a bit, I return. The point of all of this is, we're mentally done with high school. 'What's the solution?' you ask. College.

College is the solution to high school just as high school was the solution for middle school. It is the logical next step, it hopefully contains more interesting subjects and I pray it contains smarter people. The idea of college itself is a bit exciting. We imagine more freedom of self, money and study - not to mention more time to spend with our favorite nerdy/geeky people. However, there is one major problem: college applications.

College applications are a plague upon us high school students who actually take challenging classes. The baseline is: WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS! The personal information is easy. It's not fun, but it's do-able considering it's the same thing over and over again. Plus, with the miracle that is the Common App, I only had to fill out that info 3 times for the 7 colleges I applied to. The college-specific supplements are the things that really get complicated. Filling out your interests and prospective major are simple enough. The only differences there involve format. Then the eye catches on the colleges' not-so-secret weapons: THE ESSAYS [insert dramatic background music and extreme close-up here].

I don't mind writing essays. Generally, I like writing anyway. I write fiction mainly, but obviously nonfiction is not that much of a stretch for me either. In such things as blogs and college applications, it tends to be about myself and I have more extensive information on that than most other people. Besides, I'm Irish. I can write about nothing for pages (not as much fun though). The part that angers me most is the fact that A) the prompts are usually generic, boring and overused B) the word/character limits stifle creativity and C) most colleges require several essays EXCEPT, of course, the one college you actually need to entice to accept you. On a slightly related topic, I move that we make it illegal for a college to require 4 essays AND an interview unless it is something similar to Harvard or Princeton.

Right now, I am finally done with my applications and nearly done with my interviews. I am infinitely glad that I've made it this far and I wish the colleges would respond sooner, but overall that piece of the process is good. My goal now is to apply for every scholarship known to man to get money to fund this escape from high school. Needless to say, I don't have $100,000 on hand or anything nearly like it. I need as much money as I can get from these scholarships. The issue is that the vast majority of them take quite a while to prepare an acceptable entry for. Also, the deadlines are quite often on the same day. With school work and all of the scholarships I have to fill out, I may spontaneously combust. However, I did find a small glimmer of hope when I saw a $5000 scholarship for simply drawing some species of duck or goose in its natural habitat (to be made into a stamp). Obviously, with such a diverse array of subjects there must be at least one with my name on it. I just hope it's the $20,000 one.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my ranting. I'm sure some of you can empathize.

~The Minister of (not always) Silly Posts

How To Recognize Different Types Of Music From Quite A Long Way Away

I felt the need to share this wonderful song with the world today. This famous piece of music is known as "Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz" (from "A Tribute to Zdenko G. Fibich") composed by John Stump. I must say that this is one of my favorite scores of all time for reasons which will become obvious when you look at it more closely. I particularly enjoy the rigatoni section.

Non-musicians will understand this as well, so don't be scared.

~Minister of Silly Posts

Title Spotting

I have now decided that, as we are all picking titles, I shall be the Minister of Silly Posts. I will probably post several serious and possibly ranting notes intermittently, but humor is much more fun (and I need a reason to make Monty Python references).

Tonight on "It's The Mind" - more music (Styx):
Show Me The Way
Rockin' The Paradise
The Grand Illusion
Lady
Crystal Ball
Blue Collar Man

I could go on with that list forever seeing as Styx is my favorite band.

~The Minister of Silly Posts

And Now For Something Not Entirely Different

Buongiorno! Jaclyn D'Avanzo speaking...er, typing. Unlike Jonathan, I have no official blog title. Feel free to suggest a few if any spring to mind.

I must warn you of four things before I continue 1) I will be referencing Monty Python and sporadically other things 2) I am Italian, but I don't speak it fluently (yet) 3) I write like a British person according to most (long words, odd word order and such), and 4) I am also Irish and a writer, so I can go on talking about not very much for quite a long time.

Now for a bit about me. I am, thus far, the only female writing on this blog. I have a feeling a bit of confusion might come about later if you didn't know that. I have been in marching band for four years and that fact will periodically resurface in my posts I'm sure. I'm a complete band/music geek, and I play the flute, piccolo and sing (soprano, alto and a bit of tenor). Apart from that, I'm interested in most everything - applied and theoretical sciences, art (mostly of the pencil-and-paper variety), writing, anything humorous and, apparently, parenthetical comments. I am constantly reading fantasy books, listening to music or watching various TV shows (Star Trek, M*A*S*H, The Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, House and Burn Notice among others, SIDE NOTE: don't expect me to know a large amount of useless facts about any but the 2nd and 3rd of these due to the fact that I have little time to actually watch them). My alternate hobby is arguing with people (when I know what I'm talking about of course). I like confusing people with logic, scientific facts and a varied vocabulary. It’s extremely entertaining.

I live for music. I like most everything from classical to classic rock to jazz to hip hop. There is probably one single song from each genre that I like or would like if I knew about it (but there are always exceptions). Obviously, there are some genres I like a good deal more than others and there are some that I refuse to listen to at all with the exception of that single song I like. This being said, I shall leave you with a few songs to acquaint yourself with. In honor of a blog of randomness: a taste of DR. DEMENTO:
Fish Heads (no specified artist)
Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh - Allan Sherman
Nuttin' For Christmas - Stan Freberg
May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose - Little Jimmy Dickens
They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha Ha (no specified artist, but be sure to look for the Dr. Demento version)

If there's anything else anyone wants to know, I can post that too. As it is, I'm at a loss for what else to say that someone might actually bother to read.