generative spirals

I'm finally starting to get back into school life again. When I was back at home over break I felt like I never wanted to leave my house ever again. I didn't want to go back to school, but I didn't want to work either. All I wanted to do was read and write and do art (and be with my family). I was so adamant about it that my mom even offered that I could take a block off if I wanted to - but I realized that I would regret not going back. Before coming to university, I had never been away from home and my family before. In some ways, I understand that it is important to start learning to provide for myself and survive on my own, but at the same time, I find it such a foreign concept to be away from my house and my family and my old life for so long. At school as the months go by, you feel like everyone at home is starting to forget about you and move on, but then you go back for a break and you realize that everything is almost like you left it. It was comfortable to be home again, but now that I'm at school and far away, its comforting to know that my family (and my bed!) will be waiting for me until I come home next.

And its hard to pine about home much-because school is so busy right now. Math class is not as scary as I thought it would be, its actually really entertaining and I have been learning a lot. This term, there were 3 choices of math classes: math puzzles, history of math and modelling math. I chose the "math for the arts child class" which is history of math, and most of the kids in my class chose it because we hoped it would be the least math-oriented class. On the first day of school, we basically had a 2 hour counseling session led by our prof. Glen Van Brummelen about why we hated math. We went around the table sharing the scarring math experiences of our childhoods, most of them involving tyrant math teachers. After a lengthy discussion, we came to the conclusion that the reason our relationship with mathematics was so dysfunctional was due to the teaching methods we had experienced in our youth. We dubbed our past math experiences "drill sargent math training". My high school experience with math involved blindly copying and applying formulas to questions formulated in tattered textbooks that were last updated in 1976. It's hard to feel passionate about a subject when everything feels so mechanized and oppressive.

That's where my History of Mathematics class is different. Instead of just applying concepts and equations, we are learning about WHY we use them. Although plenty of math involved, it's not just a math class. I've learned about the Babylonians, the Egyptians and the Greeks. I've learned about their histories as nations, and I have studied their philosophies and have come to understand how their mathematical discoveries made sense culturally. In addition to class work, historical inquiries and problem sets, a large portion of our final grade is geared towards an independent research project. Its pretty daunting: a 10-15 page paper due at the end of the semester, involving hours of late night library sessions. My topic is about the golden ratio and the Fibonacci sequence and their relationship with the naturally occurring spirals. Even though it is a large undertaking, the more I read about how math hides in leaf formation in plants, hurricanes and even music, the more I appreciate what I am learning about. I guess that I'm becoming a little bit of a math nerd. Thanks Glen.

caro

back to school

It's weird to think that I am already half way through my first year of university. Growing up, university always seemed so far away, but I guess that now I am the one who is far away. Far away from home and my family and my field hockey team. Although I miss what I have left behind in Calgary, I have been too busy adventuring in the forest, writing papers and spending days in the Vancouver Art Gallery to get too homesick. But it always feels good to be home again-I'm on winter break right now, and I have been cramming all the sleep and friends and family I can into my days before school starts again on Monday. I have also been catching up on novels that I have been longing to read - 1984(George Orwell is such an amazing author!) and Timothy Findley's Pilgrim. I have also developped a compulsive obsession over the Presidential elections. Chances are that if I know you, I have interrogated you about your political values and most importantly-which candidate you want to lead the United States. My best friend and I are definitely nerdy political junkies, and I also happend to have convinced her to come to Quest with me. We have been pretty inseparable since highschool, and I can't express how much I have appreciated having her at our little university in the mountains.

School. On Monday. To tell you the truth, as much as I have enjoyed my luxurious time off, I feel like it's time to work again. I've been looking at my syllabus for my next class (History of Mathematics) and since I am definitely not a math person, I'm a littttle nervous. I know it is going to be hard, but what I have loved about my classes so far is that they are a challenge. I will admit that there are late nights involved, but after the block is finished I feel so satisfied that I actually learned and accomplished something. I have also noticed that my writing skills are improving. I looked at essays I wrote in Cornerstone, and I can't believe how much I have reformed my writing style (I have a tendency to be excessively flowery sometimes).

One of my other best friends went to McGill this year, and I think that I have written more in a single week than he has all semester. But what I have come to realize, is that the only way to improve is to practice. I don't mind the workload anyways because so far I have loved my classes, my profs and the subjects, and I find that homework is actually interesting if I like what I'm learning about.

I hope that this semester is just as good (even math).

caro