I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
December 14, 2004 - 1:06 a.m.
I was in this really wonderful mood this morning. I hadn�t felt this peaceful in ages. The weekend, the house concert, seeing my friends, then my sister and my family had me feeling very secure. I was checking a quote in LOTR and read In the House of Tom Bombadil and that was the icing on the cake. This morning I mailed out a Festivus package that I�ve had trouble getting out for a week now. That got me feeling even better. If I could feel like that more often I�d be in heaven. So what ruined it? My calculus class.
All that was planned for today was going over homework, first the assignment that they didn�t do that was due on Thursday and then the one due today. I totally laid down the law on Thursday and was looking for the effects of a weekend of them working hard. When we went over the first assignment I saw that they had trouble on very easy questions that should not have given them problems. What made it harder for them was that they didn�t start the homework when the lecture was fresh in their minds, they had waited almost a week. You really need to work on math homework as soon as possible after learning the material. If you don�t you have to work much harder going through your notes when you do it. They didn�t do either. One student seemed to be having trouble figuring out which was the left hand endpoint of an interval and which was the right. I think that wasn�t really the problem. What he really doesn�t understand is that when you look at the graph of the curve y = f(x) that the height, y, is the value of function at x.
None of that is what ruined my mood though. What ruined my mood was when we started going over the new homework and no one could answer a question that is trivial if you can look in the book or your notes for a formula. Not one person could give me the answer. So I asked, �who tried to do this problem?� Not one person raised his or her hand. After all the drama on Thursday about them not doing their homework once again they didn�t do it. I just walked out after that. I told them I wasn�t going to waste my time if they weren�t willing to do the minimum amount of work required. Watching me do the homework doesn�t help, they have to try and think about it themselves. There is a test tomorrow and I can�t see them doing well. I would have given them lots of good pointers for it, it is largely based on the homework we had today. Now they are going to have to just study on their own or fail. I told them I�d rather they all fail and learn that they have to do the work in order to learn the material.
Part of the problem is they are taking other courses where they have projects due. They know that if they don�t hand it a project they will fail. They can�t make the same connection with doing their work for my class. They think that they can still pass since I don�t collect the work. The fact that there is a test coming up and they are unprepared for it doesn�t get through to them. I told them they are laying the groundwork for one of the most common nightmares, taking the test you haven�t studied for.
Tonight I went to see Ashira 69.
After a successful run at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival of Episode #1: Cult to the Chase, Ashira 69, the all-female superhero show, returns to New York with a special holiday event.
With even more physical comedy, over-the-top characters, tightly choreographed stage combat, and itty-bitty costumes, our fearless heroine and "friends" go on a journey to discover the true meaning of Rossmas. Fuck yeah!
That is the blurb on the Galapagos program.
I had seen Ashira 69 with New York Carey, years ago on the lower east side. It was like a feminist superhero cyberpunk comic in dramatic form. It was hysterical. When I saw it was playing again I called Carey and we went to see it tonight. It wasn�t the same show though it was written by and starred the same person. This was a shorter holiday special. It wasn�t quite as good but it was still wonderful. It was also nice to go out with just Carey, we hadn�t done that literally in years. I got to make fun of him right off the bat when he walked right by the place trying to find it. I suspected he might and was keeping my eye on the window so I spotted him as he walked past.
The show was in Williamsburg which is incredibly convenient, it is only 15 minutes from my house. I think Chris could walk there in that time.
Tomorrow I�m giving two tests then running to see Ruth Gerson. I have a feeling I�m going to need her to put me in a good mood after the tests.
I�ve done lots of quotes before and I want to start a new series. I�m going to give a line or passage that I�ve thought about during the day without further explanation. This is from The Lord of the Rings
Bless me but has been good to see you again! There are no folk like hobbits after all for a real good talk.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
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creative commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile December 14, 2004
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