Keep Breathing

Life is a lovely conglomeration of chaos at the best of times. At the worst it is pure tovavo, that bleeding existence before creation where there was something, but it was so beyond human understanding, it was purer than any chaos we could hope to understand.

The irony of chaos is that it can feel very calm at the center of things. Take me for the moment: Right now I’m very at ease. I spent the afternoon sleeping. I woke up around six or so and didn’t even know what day it was. Things seem serene.

But right beneath–no, not “beneath” this at all; my awareness is somehow transitory, superficial, as if I am a fish and it is the fishbowl and I am looking out at a world distorted by the very medium that keeps me afloat–right around all of this, I can see and to a lesser degree feel that everything is unraveling.

Indices of Identity

It began with a desire to write better: I enrolled in Creative Writing I. It was more fun than I had imagined possible, and I learned a tremendous amount about screenwriting and poetry, but it didn’t satisfy my want to write stories better.

This semester, Creative Writing II. And not only are we doing multiple workshops a week, we’ve got a great company textbook–that’s hardly a textbook at all. It’s called Method and Madness by Alice LaPlante and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite books on writing–and I’ve read a bit on the topic, and I’ve written a lot, so I consider my opinion rather versed on the subject.

This last chapter was all about the details–bringing the abstract into the concrete, making every little thing as sensory as possible to build a world within which our readers can lose themselves.

Now that I’ve got a prompt to work with, I’m going to spend the next few weeks taking a break from my typical stories and instead playing with some writing exercises. Hopefully they’ll prove as entertaining to read as they are to write, and hopefully you’ll be able to witness my growth as a writer just as I am. For me, there’s few things more incredible than watching someone grow before my very eyes, and perhaps you’ll be able to feel this same way watching me.

So where do I begin? Right at the beginning: An index of identity.

Word Weary

I can’t recall a semester when I’ve been this exhausted at the end of the second week. Not when I had my first math class that was, for all intents and purposes, over my head. Not when I had fifteen credit hours plus work and family and student involvement. Not when I had physics and calculus and differential equations.

Yes, I came down with a stomach flu this past weekend and I think I’m not back to my full self again, but this is ridiculous. I yawn all day. I can barely focus on being awake. I could roll over asleep at any moment.

The culprit? Reading.

I love reading. I learn best by reading. But with four reading-intensive courses, the reading assignments are mountainous. Not only do I have weekly chapters to read in multiple classes, I also have “short” stories to read, reread, and annotate, stories for workshopping to read and review, and entire mythologies to tackle–and everything has a quiz attached to it. For example, yesterday I read the entire Iliad. Yes, I’ve read it before. But not recently enough to pass the test on it.

In a word, I’m word-weary. How can I read more in less time? How can I read attentively without expending all my mental energy on a single page? How do English majors do it all day long?

I’m open for suggestions.

To Begin with a Bang

I’m struggling as I write this to think of an appropriate title more so than of what I’m actually about to write. My creative side says I should do something explosive, a massive pun or some catchy alliteration, but my rational side tells me to be reserved, respectful, considerate of everything that has just happened.

Perhaps, then, this is an acceptable middle ground?

Either way, I should be in class right now. Unfortunately, my class was closed today. In fact, my entire college was closed today.

If Students Be the Food of Life, Lead On

Two down and one to go. My in-depth analysis of my college grading rubric is coming to a written close, and yet is still just blossoming into something more tangible and usable than written thoughts alone.

On Wednesday I discussed the features of a college’s basic profile–their location, their expenses, school colors, and a few other points. Yesterday I spoke about academics, math and Judaica, foreign languages and politics, as well as some things like student/faculty ratios and accelerated programs, and I got some great feedback, too.

Today, I’m talking about life. Student life in particular.

To Learn, Perchance to Thrive

Yesterday was part of an epiphany. I realised I’m giving far too much importance to the location of the universities I’m looking at than I should. Yes, location is important, but relevant to the other factors I’ve been including, it doesn’t carry as much weight as might be intended.

As for today, I’m hoping for some similar epiphanies in the fields of academia.

Wherefore Art Thou Future

As I am sure I have heavily implied lately, I’ve been researching schools to transfer to. Just looking at their websites wasn’t enough. I could love different schools and jot down notes about them, but in looking over my compiled data, I found that comparable schools felt drastically different to me–all because of the mood I was in when looking at them.

So much for being subjective.

I decided I needed an objective way to analyze each school. I thought about this for a while and then devised an elaborate grading rubric like those that certain English teachers might use in college courses. It was broken up into three areas: basic information about the school, information about their academics, and their extracurricular offerings.

However, even though this method has allowed me to practically cut in half the list of schools that I was looking at, I need to do more. I need to eliminate more, to be precise. I feel like I need to give greater consideration to my criteria to better ensure that how I’m grading them will really give me a good idea about where I’d like to be. And maybe, along the way, if people know of schools that are worth looking at, they can recommend them me. After all, even though I’m trying to make my list smaller, it’s just stupid to ignore a good contender.

And since I haven’t said it explicitly yet, I intend this to be the first of three posts, wherein each will address one area of my grading rubric. It might seem a bit much, but trust me, it’ll be worth it.

Building Utopias in Five Easy Steps

It’s curious. This morning I went to a B’not Mitzvah for two girls who I helped teach in the fourth grade when I was their madrich. When I got to the synagogue, I ran into our director of adult education. She asked me if I was finished for the summer yet, so I told her I had been since the middle of May and was now researching colleges. She asked what I was studying and I told her math. Then she asked if I knew someone, and I didn’t, but I recognized his name as someone my sister had had confirmation with years ago. He went to U of M and has since gotten his doctorate in math.

Funny things, these connections we make.

After the wonderful service, I ended up sitting at a table during our luncheon with people I hadn’t known. So since mingling is not my strong suit (and for no reason, at the time), I introduced myself. The first couple wasn’t Jewish, but they were neighbors of one my students. I like to think my hospitality made a favorable impression, not to mention they were good conversation nonetheless: He was a photographer and had done Bar Mitzvot up in Raleigh at Beth Meyer. Did I mention NCSU is one of my top choices? Did I mention it’s in Raleigh?

The second couple was engaged in conversation with the others, on the far side of the table with whom I had not easily introduced myself (distance solely our only separator). I overheard them saying their children had attended Elon and Chapel Hill (you can only guess where I’m going with this) and I inquired further, to lovely responses.

How curious indeed. Here I am, looking intently at colleges, and I stumble into not one, not two, but three relevant conversations when I had expected none! It’s almost as if it were all preparing me for today’s teaching. And, by the way, did I mention I love Hillel?

The Julia-Mandelbrot Love Child

First and foremost I am a man of ideas. I have always been a man of ideas and I presume I shall always be a man of ideas. As such, I am of this nature easily inclined to fall in love with an idea, to infatuate myself in concepts and theories, to indulge in the orgasmic philosophies of imagination and the perpetuation of thought itself.

As such, I am also of the nature of put into things more thought than one might deem reasonable for the affair. I consider at length where I’ll spend my money, how I will spend it, and what will remain after it’s spent. I can spend days on end merely considering which movies, which books, which ideas I liked more than the last.

Take history. But two short years ago I was beginning college. I loved the idea of history, that ability to raise one’s eyebrows and make a well-informed comment upon how this has all happened before. Just look back in that year, at that place, at that one moment which parallels this, and you’ll see, very clearly, how we’ve just repeated our mistakes–for better or for worse I’d leave to the audience, but it’s only one such possible encounter with a historian.

Of course, but two short years ago, I was also beginning my first course in history. And I can assure you all, there was no delight in the act for the delight that mirrored the concept. I was bored. I sought answers and insight that did not exist in the text, that did not exist in the mindset of history. Though I still do love the idea of history, and of being historically knowledgeable, the study itself remains elusive, a passion I cannot hope to touch.

As a mathematician, I’m also exceedingly fond of tangents.

The Plight of Paper People

Have you ever seen the future crashing down before you?

Notice I have not said crashing down around you. That would imply an imminent end is becoming, slips of predictions passing into the permanence of the present moment. Instead I am speaking of the future itself, that which we can dream of and look toward but can never touch, can never taste, can never truly understand.

Have you ever seen that come crashing down?