Monday, May 31, 2010

Happy Lists

Last year several happy lists emerged from Mr. Rahn's AP calculus class. There were some days when Courtney, Sara, and I simply couldn't listen to calculus anymore, so we passed around sheets of paper and listed things that made us happy. Here's the original list. My additions are in the Trebuchet font, Sara's are in the Georgia font, and Courtney's are in the Courier font.

  • •    soup
  • •    blue eyes
  • •    reading a good book on a rainy day
  • •    this pen*
  • •    a hillside when its leaves change color
  • •    Benny and Joon
  • •    the scent of fallen leaves
  • •    books/movies that make you cry
  • •    chocolate, anytime, anywhere
  • •    the wind
  • •    perfectly golden roasted marshmallows
  • •    doing random things at random times without caring what other people think about it (ex: taking jumping pictures in the rain during lunch)
  • •    singing in the rain (both the musical and the actual activity)
  • •    singing in general (the girls 100 building bathroom, best acoustics EVER)
  • •    feeling good for no reason
  • •    climbing trees (especially if I get covered in sap)
  • •    trying on clothes at stores and striking poses in the mirror
  • •    maria's hat**
  • •    the oscillating universe (both the awesome dance move and the woefully obsolete astrophysical hypothesis)
  • •    decorating Christmas trees (the good-smelling kind in your living room and x-mas tree shaped cookies)
  • •    going through the day with a good song stuck in your head and dancing to it at random moments
  • •    walking barefoot in nice, cool mud
  • •    the smell of an herb garden
  • •    the dog at Imago
  • •    Imago in general
  • •    harvest moons on midnight-black nights
  • •    Halloween
  • •    Reese's cups
  • •    being in love
  • •    being in love with someone who loves you back
  • •    playing "Adagio" on the piano
  • •    playing any piece in 6-8 time
  • •    not playing class music
  • •    bubbles
  • •    saying "je ne sais pas"
  • •    swinging
  • •    prismacolor colored pencils
  • •    the color of KMnO4
  • •    photo booth pics!
  • •    separation of photosynthetic pigments on chromatography paper
  • •    cozy sweatshirts
  • •    caution tape and duct tape
  • •    gaff tape and glow tape
  • •    the Festival of Lights
  • •    any shade of green
* The pen I was using was my teal G2 pen.
** I was wearing my colorful stocking cap from Colombia.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

What is a chiasm?

So today I was definitely not sitting in on a class at CCU entitled "Temple and Sacrifice: An Invitation to Approach the Holy One." And I definitely won't be attending it for the rest of the week. And I most certainly did not learn five notebook pages (front and back) worth of exciting things. I thought I'd get that straight first. Just for the record.

Now that we have that out of the way...
I learned all sorts of things, but to keep to my question theme and to keep myself from writing an intolerably long post, I'll just discuss two ancient literary structures I learned about today: the chiasm (about which I asked today's featured question) and the bifid.

The chiastic structure is sort of like a palindrome whose parts are arranged in a specific order to emphasize some points over others. A chiasm must have at least three sections: the beginning (A), the middle (B), and the end related to the beginning (A'). A chiasm can have as many layers as you like, as long as every point except the central point has its complement (ex: A, B, C, D, C', B', A'). The middle section can be split into two related but equally weighted parts (ex: A, B, C, C', B', A'). In a chiasm, the middle part is the most important. The beginning and ending parts are the second most important. All other point fall after these.

Let's look at an example of a chiasm: Deuteronomy 27-28 (the entire book of Deuteronomy is a looser chiasm, and also follows the form of Hittite treaties, but that's a discussion for another time).
A: curses against Israel if they disobey God (27)
B: blessing for Israel if they obey God (28:1-14)
A': more vivid curses against Israel if they disobey God (28:15-68)
When reading this last week for Bible study, I made the mistake that anyone without knowledge of ancient writing structure might make. I assumed that since so much more time was spent on curses than on blessings curses were the focus of this passage. This supports the idea that a lot of people form of God in the Old Testament as a mean and heartless God who is just waiting for a chance to punish us all. The chiasmatic structure of this passage reveals the opposite to be true. The author of Deuteronomy sandwiched blessings between passages on curses to communicate that the blessings are more important, that God longs to bless his people and not to curse them.


And now for bifids. A bifid has two parts, as you can see if you parse this Latin-based word (bi- = two, -fid = split). In a bifid, there are two main points, and the second bears the emphasis. These points are often expounded upon with many sub-points.

As an example, we'll glance at the book of Exodus (which imitates yet distinguishes itself from the tales of conquest inscribed on Egyptian war stela ... again a topic for another time).
Part I: God frees the Israelites from Egypt and leads them to Mt. Sinai. (historical point)
Part II: God gives the law. (theological point)
Although it was important to the writer that God had freed them from the Egyptians, Exodus was written to highlight the interaction between God and his people through the giving of the law.


An understanding of these ancient forms of rhetoric can apparently drastically enrich our understanding of the Bible and any other ancient text. I look forward to learning to recognize them and using them to glean more from scripture.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Can I take this apart?

I love taking things apart, figuring out how they work, and then fixing them. Paper towel dispensers, pens, toys, zippers, Ihop chairs, anything. Today I got to dissect a tape measure.

Josh (who is playing the piano quite wonderfully as I type) and I were taking measurements out in the yard so I can plan the garden, but the tape measure wasn't cooperating. It wouldn't coil back into itself like it should. So I decided I would take it apart to figure out what was wrong. Given my track record with "fixing" things, I decided to wait until my parents got home to ask for permission to disassemble it. On more than one occasion, I have managed to completely destroy something in my efforts to fix it, so I figured I should give them a heads-up before tackling the only tape measure I could find in the house. My mom had no problem with me taking it apart, so I equipped myself with a screwdriver and set about dismantling it.

To explain what I did and why to fix it (yes, I did fix it without breaking it), I will attempt to explain in words how a tape measure works. The tape part of the tape measure is wound around a plastic spool. Inside this plastic spool is coiled a long, thin ribbon of metal that acts as a spring. One end of this ribbon is attached to the plastic spool, and the other end is fed through and wound around a slitted metal pin. When the tape is pulled out, the metal ribbon is coiled tightly around this metal pin. When the tape is released, the ribbon uncoils and the tape is pulled back in. Hopefully that makes sense. If I had thought of it, I would have taken pictures as I went to simplify explanation.

There were, I believe, two problems with the tape measure. First, the loop of metal ribbon that was supposed to hold onto the central pin was broken. This was fixed by removing the broken bit and then feeding the new end through the slot. I'm not positive about this second problem, but I'll give it a try. Just now I've come up with an alternative explanation, but I think my original hypothesis is a still a more robust explanation, so I'll stick with it. As I rewound the metal ribbon, the outer coils (which I couldn't see while I was winding it, for there was a plastic part that covered most of it and kept it from springing out and causing me harm) would periodically slip. I think the outer end of the ribbon isn't properly attached to the plastic spool. It was hard to tell, even when I took the spool apart. It is possible that the tape measure will function even if this is the case.

Once I had fixed the problem of the broken end and the central pin, I began to tightly wind the ribbon again. Then I realized that if I accidentally let go of it, my hand could be shredded by the little bit of ribbon that came through the spool to attach to the tape. I did let go of it accidentally for a split second, but fortunately I caught the plastic part and stopped its spinning. I decided to put on gloves and trade my shorts for pants to protect myself. Precautionary measures typically don't occur to me, so I'm pretty proud of myself for thinking of that.

After this adjustment, I continued to wind the spring. Eventually I reattached the tape the to bit of ribbon coming out of the spool. I let it wind itself up to be more efficient and to test how well I had fixed it. For whatever reason, the coil seems to be losing tension far more quickly than it should, so I kept on having to stop and rewind it. This tape measure may be unfixable, but we will see. Once I had fully wrapped the tape back around the spool, I reassembled the plastic outer shell. I've tested it a bit, and it is now fully capable of retracting the tape if I pull it out a foot or so, but we'll have to wait and see if it still functions properly when the tape is pulled out to its full extent.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Do you want to go look at the double woolly tree?

To my knowledge, there exists no tree known as the double woolly tree, but Amanda was led to believe otherwise.

One day Amanda (my youngest sister) brought home some sort of spiky fruit from a tree and demanded to know the identity of the tree it had come from. My grandpa declared that it was a double woolly. My mom could tell my the look in his eye that he was making it up. Amanda was dubious of that answer, so she led him to the tree to see if his answer changed. It didn't. She still didn't completely believe him until he posted something on Facebook about it. Somehow a post on Facebook makes it official that my grandpa isn't joking. But Amanda still had some reservations about the double woolly. When I got back, the fruit was waiting for me, and I was told that I should go look at it with her sometime to determine its true identity.

Today was that day. My question of the day was the one you read in the title of this post. After Amanda had her snack, we headed out with the tree identification book in hand. Along the way we chatted about all sorts of things. I love hearing about the world from the perspective of an eight-year-old. My discussed everything from possible explanations of the death of a possum in the road to scooter basketball in gym class.

We arrived at the tree in question. I pulled out the dichotomous identification guide and taught Amanda how to use it. Eventually the terminology got too technical so I took over. In the meantime she rambled happily about school. We decided the tree was a bitternut hickory. The walk back home was spent in the same way the walk to the tree was spent. It was a lovely walk on a lovely day with my youngest sister.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Lost, Again

Along with the question theme (see the short post down the page from this one), relating my misadventures in navigation will likely continue to pop up in my blog now and again. I think almost every driving fail story I have is on here at this point. If not, I'll add the rest in the future. I'm sure new adventures will show up as long as I drive new places.

The adventure I will relate today takes us to the land of Price Hill. It is a rather peculiar story for the fact that it is not my fault that we got lost. Nonetheless, we were lost, and I was one of the drivers. The tale begins at Finneytown High School where several of us young female types met to ride down to Imago Nature Reserve in Price Hill for an afternoon of helping children with art. The minivan filled up with Beth as its driver and five freshmen and sophomores (my sister was among them) as passengers, and Marcy filled up with the three '09 girls who had been to Imago dozens of times. Contrary to reason, the minivan led the way. Beth had printed directions, so we assumed we'd be fine following her. To be safe, Courtney, my level-headed navigator got out Janet the GPS and we had Janet map the way in case we got lost.

In an effort to avoid highways as much as possible, we took a route we were less familiar with. Before the real craziness began, we had already turned around once and gone under a super creepy bridge. I made sure the windows were rolled up and the doors locked before anything got weird. Just when I recognized where we were and was sure of how to complete the journey, Beth switched out of the left turn lane and went straight. Not wanting a van full of high school girls to be lost alone in Price Hill and hoping that Beth just had a new set of directions, we switched lanes and followed them. I would like to note that due to the low levels of traffic, this was done without danger of collision.

Anna, my communications coordinator, borrowed my phone to call Raqchell and set up a connection between the two vehicles. It was determined that Beth did not know where we were. Neither did anyone in my car. All we knew was that this wasn't the most pleasant part of town. After much talking (far too much talking, in my opinion), Beth finally turned down a relatively innocuous side street. We took the lead with Courtney navigating via Janet. We learned Beth's phone also had GPS capabilities, so even if we were to lose them they would be able to get directions. It was well that this was the case.

Almost immediately upon returning to the main road, things got confuzzled once more. Beth was not directly behind me. I tried switching lanes to let the irritated driver behind me pass, but evidently he had already switched lanes to pass me. I narrowly avoided collision. Once he had passed me, I switched lanes. This time I checked for other cars rather thoroughly. Unfortunately, the lane I switched to doubled as parking. I signaled to get back into the other lane, but Beth accidentally passed me. Anna immediately got Raqchell back on the phone. We decided both cars would follow their navigation devices and that we would meet up at Imago.

Janet told Courtney to tell me to turn right on White Street. I did just that. As I turned the corner, I was confronted by the steepest road I had ever seen. Bogota roads had nothing on this hill. Considering the fact that Bogota roads climb up mountains, you can get an idea of how steep of a downhill grade greeted us on White Street. Courtney gasped, I shouted "oh dear" (or something like that), and profanities began to stream from Anna's mouth. To make matters more terrifying, all that I could see at the bottom of the hill when I turned was a huge abandoned building that had clearly been a grandiose school back in the day. I am not ashamed to admit that I was scared. I am not often scared, but I was definitely frightened turning onto White Street. Fortunately the hill was short. A little bit of street looped around in front of the former school, so I pulled onto that to collect myself. A more thorough look at my surroundings revealed that White Street was a residential street. Once you managed to pass the uber creepy super massive building I was stopped in front of. My calm restored, I mentally prayed, determined that my best bet was to follow Janet's directions, and continued down White Street. It was a very hilly street, but it never got nearly as bad as it had been where I turned off of the main road.

The next few turns took us into increasingly unpleasant parts of Price Hill, but that didn't last long. A turn or two brought us into the slightly better parts of Price Hill that we recognized as the route to Imago. Anna's memory eventually disagreed with Janet. After a moment of deliberation I circled the block and trusted Anna. She got us there just fine.

We called Raqchell to see how the van was faring and discovered that they were safely into recognized territory. The following hour of crafts on the forest trails provided much-needed relief from the tension of the drive. I got back to Finneytown without incident. I knew the way, but I kept Janet out just to be safe. It was not until several hours later that I fully calmed down. I considered asking for a big hug when I reached the church. I probably should have, but I was afraid I might have a meltdown. I think what really unnerved me on this misadventure was the fact that I was also trying to keep a van full of dearly beloved high school girls safe in addition to getting myself to the destination. The terrifying turn onto White Street didn't help any, but that alone would not have been enough to leave me shaken for hours after the fact.

Questions

I am just a tad bit inquisitive. I have questions about everything, and every time one question is answered that answer inspires several more questions. I'm going to try an experiment. I will come up with at least one question each day. I will then seek the answer to this question. Whenever possible, I will ask someone in person to answer my question.

Why? Well, I'm often bursting at the seams with curiosity anyway, so why not do something about it? Another reason is that it will help me interact with people, especially since I will ask someone directly whenever possible. I'm not known for my stellar social skills, and hopefully this will help me get to know people better and learn to break the barriers of awkward that I often find between me and other people.

What kind of questions will I ask? All kinds. Why are stickers sticky? How closely related are rhododendrons and magnolias? How are amino acids named? Why do people have color preferences? What's your favorite color? Where did you get that scar from? What was the highlight of your day? The list could go on and on.

What will I do with these answers? Lots of things. I'll build relationships, satisfy curiosity, answer questions that other people have, discover new interests, who knows? When I discover something that I deem sufficiently interesting, I will post it here. I'll try to give at least one post per week. From time to time I will probably still post random lists, musings, and papers, but for the most part this question business will become the main focus of my blog.