Criticism

This week I worked on a poster that I have to make for a conference. I made my first draft and really didn't love it but it was as much as I could give at the moment. When my professor looked at it he gave me quite a few things to change and more advice then I really wanted to deal with at the moment. The next day I went back to it and changed it a lot. I didn't necessarily change it in the way he said but I addressed the issues his comments were about. For example he said I should create blocks around different subjects. I don't think that looks very nice and it wouldn't have worked very well with the images I already had. However, I made the flow a lot more clear, which is why he wanted me to change it in the first place.
I learned that technique from my Dad. He told us that when he was writing his dissertation his adviser kept rewriting sections of his work, and as his adviser was not a native english speaker they always sounded terrible. Finally, my Dad realized that he didn't need to write what his adviser said, he just needed to rewrite where his adviser said.
I've heard that the author Shannon Hale said something similar. When someone tells you to fix something they are almost always right, but how they say to fix it is almost always wrong. That you have to figure out yourself. Granted I think this works for more creative types of work...
I think overall I am pretty open to criticism and take it pretty well. However, it usually is easier to make the changes if I have given it a little time. It is really hard to suppress that first spark of hurt that comes... even when I didn't love it to begin with it and kind of agree with the criticism.

Unifying Influences

I went on a fieldtrip on Satuday to more or less the middle of no where.We went off roading in 12 passenger vans... and got stuck. It took perhaps an hour, hour and a half to get both of our vans unstuck and back on a firmer road. We only had 2 shovels (but at least we had them) and we hauled flattish chunks of limestone from the nearest rock outcrop to use as planks to put under the tires. For the most part it went fine and people stayed good natured but at a few moments there was some argument and under the breath mutterings of stupidity (if they had just listened they would have known why certain things were being done). "Too many cooks in the kitchen," as someone noted.
It actually wasn't an uncommon concurrences for these poor geology vans or so I've heard.

This picture really doesn't give it justice.

Not long ago I was talking to some geology students about how close everyone seems to be in the geology department, I've heard or been part of such a tight knit university department. One of the students I was talking to explained it simply. "It's the fieldtrips." Which I think refers to both the time spent together (with more time you are more likely to become friends), but I think also to sharing hard experiences.
In High school I wrote a research paper entitled "Boosting a Nation's Self-Esteem: The Impact of the 'Space Race' on American Nationalism." Then, in my novel "Legend Speaker" I wrote about a girl who tries to unify a series of nomadic hunter-gatherer groups. When trying to figure out how to make that possible for my characters to accomplish I had a discussion with my brother and we talked about how there are three main ways to accomplish unity on the large scale.
1)A disaster like Hurricane Katrina.
2)A common enemy like most wars or more specifically 9/11.
3)A common goal such as winning the most medals in the Olympics.
The problem though is most of these are high stress situations, and as shown in the minor example of the fieldtrip that can lead to argument and tension. There are plenty of examples of high stress situations leading to the exact opposite of unity, so the question is when do they cause unity and when divisiveness. There seems to be something about success in the endeavor that lends itself to unity in the end but that might just be a circular argument.

Giving Ferns some Light

I am reading Anne of Green Gables at the moment and I was thinking about Diana, Anne's best friend. It has been a while since I have read them all but in the first one at least Diana is portrayed as kind of boring and a little slow but still endearing. It made me think of some other familiar ferns. Samwise Gamgee and Ron Weasley are both often portrayed in a similar light (especially in the beginning of the series). It seems a little sad though. Why must ferns appear in an unflattering light. Occasionally I listen to a podcast called Writing Excuses. In one of their episodes they talked about how each character should act and be written as though they are the main character in their own story, even if it is not the current story. I've always thought it would be cool to write a story like that, one where the main character is really the supporting character. In my short story Anchors I played with the idea a bit. I remember in the writing class I wrote it for one of the other students said I should have written part of the story from Nate's point of view about what he had learned in his travels (perhaps how it wasn't as glamorous as he'd hoped). I didn't do it. It would have defeated the point of the story (at least how I saw it). In Legend Speaker my main characters are definitely not ferns but I still tried to give my ferns some good scenes and character development. Maybe that is why I like stories where the main characters don't do everything because that just isn't reasonable. There is a fairly common saying "Behind every great man is a great woman." It suggests that woman throughout history have played the role of ferns, which is awesome... I just wish people would stop portraying ferns as a little dumb. Let ferns act in their own story. Sam Gamgee certainly finds his own place.

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).