Specialization

What would you call it when someone took the time to observe a person, a place or a phenomenon and then recorded what they saw and presented it to others?

I took this picture in the center of Indianapolis and I placed it here to separate the above question from what is below because you are supposed to actually think about the answer.

Depending on the medium I would most likely call it one of two things.
Art or Science.
People like Leonardo DaVinci, and Nicolas Steno are known today as early scientists but in many ways they were also artists. The difference between these two fields (for lack of a better term) used to be quite a bit smaller. It wasn't weird to be interested in science and a painter and inventor. Plus, much of science focused on understanding the natural world and so being able to accurately sketch was invaluable.
With the onset of the industrial revolution and increasing amounts of specialization and probably even before, they were increasingly seen as drastically different.
Although the methods and the outcomes of science and art may differ, I feel like the starting point is much the same. Observation.
I was doing a lab this week and one of the assignments was to draw a fusulinid from a microscope slide. Some of my classmates were complaining about it saying that was what photographs were for but for the simple sake of the assignment when it really didn't take much time I felt it a reasonable assignment because drawing something yourself forces you to observe.
Qualitative vs quantitative analysis is often judged to be the difference between art and science but I beg to differ.
I've taken several art classes and although some things are unarguably subjective there are definite rules as well.
Science as taught in elementary school is a series of facts that can be proven true (ignoring here that science should be all about being able to falsify something). However, the more "real" science I've done the more I find that science often includes uneven dirt, and sketched in measurements. Of course I have not done white-lab-coat-science but I feel like even then there is probably some qualitative judgments going on, such as when do these numbers become significant.

I recognize that we live in a world of specialization, and I am grateful for it. I wouldn't be able to study paleontology if we didn't. But, I also wish we could view the world in a more holistic way sometimes.

Class Participation

I attend a fair amount of classes in my day to day life. Undergrad classes, graduate classes, Sunday school class and Relief Society meetings (an all woman's class held as part of our church meetings). Sometimes I enjoy noticing patterns in participation.

In mixed classes with men and women more men seem to speak up then women but the women who do speak up also tend to be the ones that speak up readily in all women classes, which isn't particularly surprising.

Personally, I participate better in classes of under 30 then larger ones (although I do remember raising my hand to identify a coati in an auditorium when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade). I have also found that I am less likely to raise my hand in new classes. I usually wait a couple of weeks before being willing to participate regularly. It is also easier to participate when I'm on the front row because I have a tendency to answer questions under my breath and so if I'm closer then the teacher will here me and ask me to repeat it. I usually sit in the back.

Also, the way I feel about the teacher changes how I participate. If the teacher is a friend or at least someone I feel bad for I am more likely to participate even if I don't have anything particularly great to say. If the teacher seems competent and reacts well to other participants' comments I am more willing to comment. If the teacher reacts badly to participants' comments or if they rub me the wrong way and have bad questions even if I have something to say I probably won't volunteer it.

All this is probably fairly common and what most people do so I am only posting this because I didn't have anything more profound to say.

Sincerity and Optimism

"Being sincerely Christlike is an even more important goal than being authentic."

This was a quote from Elder Quentin L Cook, an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints given in a talk today.

I liked it. As I have mentioned before I really try to be sincere, but I also try to stay positive. That is basically how I took that comment. It is good to he honest and sincere but it is most important to be kind.

I recently moved into a new apartment and I mean brand new. Never lived in before. The day I moved in the kitchen table and chairs hadn't been put together yet. I've had some people ask me how I like it. Every time I end up saying something about not having hot water for showers. I wish I wouldn't. They are nice apartments, spacious, clean, comfortable but honestly most of those things I don't really care that much about or take for granted and instead I tend to notice the things like the lack of hot water and how I had to buy a trash can and a dish drainer. I'm not really upset by any of these things but I'm not in love with any of it either so I think that is why I bring up the negative. After I do though I feel like I'm complaining and I don't mean to do that either. So even if that original statement seems fairly simple I think it is trickier then it sounds.

It is even trickier when it is something that is truly meaningful, or something that I struggle with. How do you discuss something that is painful in a positive light but also be honest about it. What I have found (in the more meaningful stuff, not the apartment thing) is that I have to come to terms with it first which takes some soul searching and thinking and some divine perspective before I can answer with sincerity and optimism.

Fish Watching or Why I Would Have Been a Natural Historian

Last Saturday I sat on the banks of a river. That sounds far more picturesque then it really was. Really, I clambered down the steep bank that was littered with fallen leaves and spiderwebs to sit on the rocks on the edge of the water. I sat there for a while off and on writing and watching. After a few minutes I realized that their was fish in the river there, quite a few actually. I've often walked along that river this summer and I had noticed previously that it had been stocked, obviously stocked. Some areas seemed so filled with fish that if they had all frozen in place I could have walked across on their backs. So realizing there was fish wasn't really surprising in the sense that they were there, just surprising that I hadn't noticed them earlier. It was amazingly hard to spot them when you are on about the same plane and the water is half in sun and half in shadow.
Anyway, I noticed these fish. Then I sat watching the surface of the water and every so often I caught sight of a flash of something a little too sharp to be water. I realized the fins of the fish were poking out of the water periodically. That was kind of cool. It reminded me of the scene in the Princess Bride with the screaming eels churning the water.
After a while I realized that the fish were coming quite close to me, if I just shifted over one rock they would be within touching distance. So I went and crouched on that rock, as soon as I was on it they made their casual way farther away and out of reach. I crouched there for more then 5 minutes and they never came back. I moved back to my original position and within a minute they were back in range. Who knew fish were so sneaky? I went back to writing but then I realized I had my camera with me. It can take pictures underwater so I tried again. This time it worked, partially because I didn't need the fish to get as close.

I wouldn't say that I got any amazing pictures but they are kind of fun. These are two of the better ones.

The reason I described that experience in probably more detail then anyone would care to hear is because I just really enjoy that kind of thing (I think I would have been a Natural Historian if I lived in the 1800s) and even feel like I need it to some degree. Its refreshing or something.
My old roommate that I talked to quite a bit asked me how I thought the next semester would go. I told her among other things that I was a little worried that at my new apartment I wouldn't have any green space within easy access. She was a little surprised. Despite our many conversations she hadn't realized that that was important to me. Maybe it's because I don't talk about fish. :) Or rather observing nature doesn't really seem like something that naturally comes up that much, and it just seems a little weird to explain (as mentioned above).