It so happens that Microsoft and Google's relationship may shed light on Microsoft, in so far as there is similarity. For, Google is two. It is not just one feature, provided well. It is an attempt for the many to strike the few, for their share, without doing harm. Its like we have been given an extra cloak to put off the fighting. Yet some countries are outlawing it. And those who value its search, its service, and guidance, must update their opinions about the residents of those countries. How can they do it justly, I ask, if the questions they ask come from the keywords they searched. Its almost as though if we share a source we can judge one another. But given different sources, there can be no judging. Though we only will ever acknowledge ours. I don't know what people who don't use Google do instead of what I do. Since I don't know anything about it, I don't accept that there is a plurality of sources, so I continue to judge, as if we shared a source.
Sources of knowledge are not like sources of food. Well they are if you suppose that knowledge brings food. Because if I caused that, then its source is like mine. But suppose that is true in the same way that the sum of the squares of the lengths of two edges of a triangle is the square of the length of the remaining edge is true. The Pythagorean Theorem is true in the same way that sources of knowledge are sources of food. This latter doesn't capture what it is to bring food. Knowledge is quantified over a different time range than food, but the one is given by the other; meaning that some knowledge is required to provide any food, but some specific type of knowledge brings food, rather than gather it in an unspecified location.
Sources are known. So suppose the pythagorean theorem is true as knowledge begets food. Or does it come from the same parent? Either way, the sources are the same. But of course knowledge begets food implies that the source of knowledge is a source of food. Is that all knowledge is? Whose food? Otherwise, same parents means same source. In the first case we have transitivity and then we get same domain.
On the source of food. The sources are varied, but share that characteristic that has already been mentioned, of having the same source as knowledge. Is this true or not? It's something like--I don't know, what is food? What isn't food? There is another judgement to be made about the amount of food; another for its quality. But how is the sourcing of water, then, in particular? Bottles, taps, points, springs, wells, fruit, the kiss, air... And what of the sourcing of food, is it not more varied? It hardly less varied than is life, being that all sources of life can be sources of food. It is so hard to say that we can eat things that have lived. When I try, I also say, by accident, that we can be a convenience as to acquire food--transitively, again. Certainly the likelihood of eating one another is isn't equally elevated.
But is it true that all food has lived? We must wander what is food and what came before it? And that is admitting that everything is partly food and partly not food. For what would we excrete if there was only food? There is, therefore, a question of waste. And time, there is a delayed exchanged in some questions of food.
At first we say that if the net effect is more food than waste, then it is food. But with time in the picture, we cannot ever determine the net effect. So we being to talk of net changes to the net supply over time. How does knowledge fare here? Knowledge has a measure in the food it provides. Food in the experience it produces. And is there not some similarity: the knowledge that brings food and the experience of eating that food must sort of coexist to be considered so. This is a way for Google users to acknowledge those who don't. It can only be considered a source of knowledge if there is knowledge that comes from somewhere else corroborates it.
Knowledge begets food by providing the means of its attainment and the judgment of what can be attained. A substance is more food if engenders less waste: food is food if it brings about more food. users of Google will have to do when faced with acknowledging people who don't use Google. So knowledged is judged by the food it brings about. But what is the determining factor of the criterion for knowledge. If everything is some part food, then everything is some part knowledge. It is a sort of terrible self perpetuation. But the general idea of growth is helpful at least. It gives one some hope.
Affecting a plurality--in this case, of search engines--multiplies numbers but doesn't change the size. It is sort of dryly growth. A living being divides itself into two equal parts, which are forever equal, except at any given time are unequal. Is the Pythagorean Theorem true like this? I think so: when we are given two different sides and take the sum of their squares, then the square of the third side is equal. Yet any time we consider this, we are considering different representations, which are unequal. How can two things be equal if they are not represented in the same way? Surely your manner of representation is one of your characteristics.
Saturday 13 December 2014
Wednesday 25 June 2014
L'Univérsité d'Antananarivo
Ambodatovo! Should be 'Ambohijatovo', but the former is what one of the bus guys says while trying to fill up a bus right outside the main entrance of the university. And that gets me: even when the guys don't say it I imagine they do and I smile. I say "Mianatra aminy ankatso aho"- I learn at Ankatso, but I dont really know what Ankatso is. Is it the name of the quartier where the school is? Google Maps indicates that is so.
Well, while I am using Maps, here is an image of downtown Tana with two important places marked. The bus between those two points costs 400 Ar = 17.4 cents. A healthy healthy sized meal costs 1500-2000 Ar outside the school and less near the lecture hall at the end of the path in the picture.
Sort of don't want to talk about other prices involved because that's not the good stuff...and people paying their way through college in the US might get angry.
But let me quickly add those things that make me feel uncomfortable about choosing to live here:
1. Trying to get a visa.
2. Receiving a package from abroad.
3. Buying anything electronic.
Notice the tension between the two and three! I am pretty enthusiastic about French. Its easy progress but I embarrass myself often with errors or vocab gaps. But I really get hung up on the zero virgule...0,4--to me its point four or .4 and I just CANT STOP saying point quatre. Nobody but me seems to mind. I mean, I am not mad at myself, but I am actually mad at the French for upholding such a diverging tradition my own. Is that dumb? But my roommate just told me that in French, we use 'nombre' quantitatively and 'numéro' qualitatively. Like "Je suis le numéro sept dans le mondes de collectionneurs de timbres--j'ai un grand nombre de timbres.". Is there something similar in English? Well, I forgive the French anyway.
LA LA LA la LA la la la la LA la LA LA LA World Cup! I bought a Sharp TV; what brand do you want? We have labels from all the major manufacturers to glue on to your new device!
On that note, they Fedex said the border control will demand a tax of 40% of the value of the contents of the package.
But let's get back to the good stuff about Ankatso. Well, I am not going to twinkle toe around this: there is a serious ping pong club. I know, I know, its unfair. Its not a cure for tendonitis, but it is near enough a cure for all of life's other miseries. I am getting a lot of guidance from the other players: lean forward, bend at the knees, shift your weight, backswing, follow through...
What else? Dono, teachers don't come to class as consistently as they did in the school I attended in the US. It bothers me sometimes, but when they do come, some sometimes go hard for 2+ hrs and so it will be a disaster week when all the teachers show up--considering four of the six days a week I spend at school involve three scheduled classes.
The campus reminds me of Arizona buildings. The students in my department go to lectures almost all day on Tuesday and Wednesday. We are about 400. It's pretty cold in the lecture hall in the morning, but the students are really spirited. There is a student pastor who talks to us sometimes in the afternoon while we wait for the teacher. Our delegates talk about department sports teams, behavior, and the distribution of course materials. When everyone is seated a girl risks considerable whistling by getting up for whatever reason. Towards the end of the a session people start clapping whenever the teacher pauses just for a moment. Then the teacher says something funny in Malagasy--or gets angry. Its not easy to see the board, so we reserve seats and get to class very early.
Well, while I am using Maps, here is an image of downtown Tana with two important places marked. The bus between those two points costs 400 Ar = 17.4 cents. A healthy healthy sized meal costs 1500-2000 Ar outside the school and less near the lecture hall at the end of the path in the picture.
Sort of don't want to talk about other prices involved because that's not the good stuff...and people paying their way through college in the US might get angry.
But let me quickly add those things that make me feel uncomfortable about choosing to live here:
1. Trying to get a visa.
2. Receiving a package from abroad.
3. Buying anything electronic.
Notice the tension between the two and three! I am pretty enthusiastic about French. Its easy progress but I embarrass myself often with errors or vocab gaps. But I really get hung up on the zero virgule...0,4--to me its point four or .4 and I just CANT STOP saying point quatre. Nobody but me seems to mind. I mean, I am not mad at myself, but I am actually mad at the French for upholding such a diverging tradition my own. Is that dumb? But my roommate just told me that in French, we use 'nombre' quantitatively and 'numéro' qualitatively. Like "Je suis le numéro sept dans le mondes de collectionneurs de timbres--j'ai un grand nombre de timbres.". Is there something similar in English? Well, I forgive the French anyway.
LA LA LA la LA la la la la LA la LA LA LA World Cup! I bought a Sharp TV; what brand do you want? We have labels from all the major manufacturers to glue on to your new device!
On that note, they Fedex said the border control will demand a tax of 40% of the value of the contents of the package.
But let's get back to the good stuff about Ankatso. Well, I am not going to twinkle toe around this: there is a serious ping pong club. I know, I know, its unfair. Its not a cure for tendonitis, but it is near enough a cure for all of life's other miseries. I am getting a lot of guidance from the other players: lean forward, bend at the knees, shift your weight, backswing, follow through...
What else? Dono, teachers don't come to class as consistently as they did in the school I attended in the US. It bothers me sometimes, but when they do come, some sometimes go hard for 2+ hrs and so it will be a disaster week when all the teachers show up--considering four of the six days a week I spend at school involve three scheduled classes.
The campus reminds me of Arizona buildings. The students in my department go to lectures almost all day on Tuesday and Wednesday. We are about 400. It's pretty cold in the lecture hall in the morning, but the students are really spirited. There is a student pastor who talks to us sometimes in the afternoon while we wait for the teacher. Our delegates talk about department sports teams, behavior, and the distribution of course materials. When everyone is seated a girl risks considerable whistling by getting up for whatever reason. Towards the end of the a session people start clapping whenever the teacher pauses just for a moment. Then the teacher says something funny in Malagasy--or gets angry. Its not easy to see the board, so we reserve seats and get to class very early.
Wednesday 23 April 2014
Blazoned Burgeon
***
I talked about evolution with the CNELA English Club. A girl said it was boring! That was a bit of a relief to hear actually. Also, I was offended too because I did most of the talking. That's not actually their style: usually people raise their hands and are addressed in order. I don't like that, and I was the leader today. Still, I wasn't very aware that I was breaking from their tradition, I just sort of talked, asked questions, and talked, as it occurred to me.
I have been helping a colleague with a very interesting translation. The original document is about the election... What else? Oh, I helped give a talk about being a vazaha in Madagascar to new Peace Corps Volunteers. That was really fun. Part of it the fun was seeing Americans. But I also enjoyed meeting the Malagasy staff and the other speakers, Haina and Safa, of Comorros and Yemen, respectively. I am still teaching at CNELA and my students are getting LAZY! I can tell because less than half did the homework last week. What do I do??? The staff room at school is really fun. There are a lot of lively teachers and there are people working hard too. Everyone is so willing to help, too. One thing that is a bit weird is that everyone is part time. Lots of the teachers have other teaching jobs. I know one guy who teaches at four schools!
April 2
***
The end of the teaching session went well. Some students complimented me and some found the courage to ask me some personal questions. Testing season now: April 13. Went back to Wushu after a two weekend break. It was fun on Saturday afternoon: Franciska ran the workout and we learned a new form. On Sunday morning we didn't start until practically 10, but Zo was there. He has improved a lot in the last eight months. He used to be flexible, but now he can jump high too. I tried to jump into a roll and hurt my back a bit, but its fine now (5 hrs later). It actually wasn't that bad, but I was scared to try again.
I have something to say about the internet. Really its just for Google. Their motto was "Do no evil" but they must have changed it. They have been rolling out product after product. I assume the aim is to have a secure income source, since business advisors told them ad revenue from search isn't secure, as customers can just change search engines whenever they want. Listening to this advice is evil. That in an of itself is reason enough to use a different search engine, but Google's is still the best. Here's the deal though, instead of investing so much money in new products, why don't they invest in connecting the world. Think of how locked in to Google people will be when Google comes to their remote village in the mountains, installs solar panels, provides computers, and connects them to the rest of the world. That's real loyalty. Google has the kind of money necessary to do LOTS of these hyperspecific projects. That is doing good and its good for business. Creating prodoucts like Chromebooks and the Nexus line and whatnot don't make a big difference in the world except to saturate it with the Google logo. Google was given a big chance when they were given an out of this world revenue stream from search ads. Business advice from other industries is completely inapplicable and it was pure greed that drove them to this failure of imagination. The truth is that they best way to secure customers is to get people like you. How could you do that better than straight giving away access to your product?
The second thing I want to say about the internet is that I want to see more product placement in my free movies. You know what, I prefer if EVERY car driven by a good guy in the next big action movie is a Cadillac than if I have to pay to see that damn movie. Ad companies can pay fractions of a buck for every download. I can watch whatever movie I want for free. Movie companies make money. And I am subconciously motivated to buy Oral toothbrushes because thats what Norton uses in Fight Club: Attack of Commercialism. I hate paying for movies. Can I just relate this to Madagascar for a second? I can walk to any number of stores and have the guy copy a movie onto my usb key for under a dollar. And you know what I am paying for in that situation? I am paying for that guy's storage, because he has a great deal of harddrives filled with awesome media that has nothing to do with any copyright coorporate golden TP royalty big lawyer screw the little guy junk. Now I can't pretend that this situation makes any sense at all, since I should be able to download whatever movie I want for free in a reasonable amount of time. But it is a whole lot more reasonable than waiting for Netflix to buy rights for some group of movies you've been waiting to see. Once you make some piece of media, isn't it an honor that people want to see it? Don't you want your message to reach the greatest number of people? Or do you just want the biggest paycheck-bc I probably don't want to see that movie... Right, assume everyone pays for their movies in the developped world. Well that is dandy, but someone will have to revamp the constitution and establish rule of international law before that happens in the third world. You might say go for it, but that really isn't the right motivation is it? So that some chump in the US/China can make a money taking a cut off a movie purchase by some guy pushing a cart around... /endrant=2x'...'
***
One thing I forgot to mention is another suggestion for Google. Another way they could spend their money constructively is to buy up all the publishing companies of academic journals, buy their archives, and all of the copyrights. Then post all the information from all scholarly publications for all time, onto Google Scholar for free access by the public. Then we could get a really good idea of the relationships between the sciences.
From some Mahaleo song, and then translated from French by me, "God gave the Swiss the watch and he gave the Malagasy time".
April 14, 2014
***
Well the testing is complete now. 18 of 26 of my students who took the test passed. 21 passed the written but 3 failed the oral. It really surprised me that they did because I found that they were all capable. Particulary one young guy was calm and natural and spoke with ease. I asked why he failed and I was told that he made mistakes. To be honest, there is a lot that I don't like that I don't have enough energy to comment on, but its the type of thing that I have to do in person before elabroating on my blog. Anyway, I am not signed up to teach anymore because I want to be a student. Still waitin on a response (April 23) to my application to the math department at the Univ. of Ankatso. Kind of anxious now, because if accepted, I will need to ask for a refund from a language institude in Japan.
So anyway, I was in Tsarasoatra this weekend. I learned how to crack a whip. It only cost a few blisters on my hands, red marks on my arms, some embarassment, and a healthy dose of soreness. The trick is not speed, but its to whip in both directions. Like the windup needs to be just as fast as the swing. I had to watch a bunch of tiny boys wield a karabasy (whip) before figuring this out.
So with my new skill, I helped take the webu from the field and get them in their resting spot for the night. Also, we plowed a field. You just really have to lean some handlebars to the left to get the plow to move to the right and lean it right to go left. The hardest part is remembering that. Once I figured it out I still had trouble to see the path I was supposed to take. The good thing is that while steering you can use the plow to support you if you slip because walking in a flooded field is...not easy.
The 70watt panel and the 65amp/hr battery that we installed at the hosue earlier is alright for light and charging phones, but it only gives like 30 minutes of TV per night. That really is OK. But I want people to embrace solar, so I am going to figure something out.
Oh right, I finished reading Kafka's The Trial. Really some strokes of genius in the book, especially at the end, but on a whole it is a very rough and unfinished book. I wasn't really interested for a lot of it. The guy doesn't go about the trial in the same way as I wanted him too, particularly he never consults the police. What I mean is that he never appeals to an authority to verify that of the court which is holding his trail. I really liked the cathedral scene because the priest was so understanding and well informed.
Today, I went to the invocation for 37 new Peace Corps Volunteers. There actually is not American Ambassador to Madagascar. There hasn't been one since 2010. The 'Chargee d'Affairs', a guy named Eric Wong spoke for the embassy. He said that he is confident a new ambassador will be appointed. He also said that the democratic election is a good start to getting some trade benefits under AGOA. Before he spoke the Peace Corps Country directer, and American named Dee, gave a passionate speech. But after Wong spoke, the Prime Minister of Madagascar spoke. He thanked Wong in a sort of up front way: he took the microphone from his translater (he was speaking in French) and turned to look at Wong, then he said thank you for the 70 million USD in aid that the US forked over each year of the crisis. The World Bank is said to have stopped giving aid for the duration of the crisis.
Anyway, I talked to one or two Peace Corp Volunteers but it was a bit surreal and while it was somewhat necessary, I really didn't get into it. I also talked to an intern at the Embassy. He is a religious type guy from Washington who did some work in Indonesia along the same lines as Peace Corps. He talked to me and Haina about Sex Education. He introduced an idea to me: some education can be something like encouragement, so they had to walk a fine line in a conservative Muslim country (according to him, most of Indonesia is Muslim-this also surprised me). Anyway he was a young American and I had a less not normal talk with him than with the volunteers. Another event took place at this meeting. By the way, it was at the Villa Philadelphia, which is supposed to be the Ambassador's house. So I started a conversation with a Malagasy guy. It was a long conversation for this cocktail and appetizer type event. And I asked if he was sure he didn't know me because I suspected I had seen him before. Turns out he leads the Bible Study Fellowship here in Antananarivo. I went there for a while, but stopped for one reason or another. Anyway, he works for the Peace Corps too: he is a health and safety advisor.
So those are some of the goings on and on goings. Rado's family is crashing here so it is a full house.
Sunday 23 March 2014
gulp
Glug glug glug
I finished 'Amerika' by Kafka. I learned a lot of disturbing things, not by reading Kafka, but by reading some of the notes in the book. Like this guy Max Brod, who shamelessly promotes the book, was asked by Kafka, to burn all the writing that Kafka had not published. That is, Kafka wanted no posthumous publications. Of course, a large part of his work was unpublished. And it wasn't burnt... So I feel really bad about reading something a dead guy didn't want read. But the book was given me by my request and I was compelled to read it. Also, Kafka never actually went to the US. So it was fun to see what sort of things he could come up with. Actually, I wasn't alive when the book was supposed to take place, which was in the first half of the twentieth century. The was a lot of sort of inter European struggling. The book is a comedy and, accordingly, the main character got himself into so many situations that did not reflect his inner experiences. The last chapter seems slapped on for it is not mentioned how the protagonist gets from his lowly position at the end of the second to last chapter to the more agreeable position at the beginning of the last chapter.
I read a King Solomon's Ring, by Konrad Lorenz. I found it in the library at the British School. I grabbed it while waiting for someone, intending to put it back soon after. But the library was closed after I met with my colleague in translation. Anyway this book is a wild sort of diary about keeping animals. It is written by a military doctor turned zoologist who likes to read poetry. Now this guy really understands certain animal calls and that lets him make sort of a commercial claim in the book. But the anecdotes in the story are what makes it worth reading. He can tell a story well, but his narrative notes are a bit intrusive, like he is taking too much care of his reader. I really like his account of the water shrew, which is an animal that navigates primarily by muscle memory. He ends with a brief comparison between the wolf and the dove, asking which will be the example humans follow. The wolf, though, is the more civilized. The evidence of this is that a vanquished challenger to the position of the leader of his pack will present its neck to a leader who is unable to make the kill whereas the caged dove may kill one of its own kind.
I listened to The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells and read by Alex Foster. It is such a sad story. But actually the language seems so classic. I recommend this version to those who want to hear 'What the deuce?!' said properly. Anyway, the book left me feeling like we really ought to forgive. If the person who wrongs you does so for the sake of something you can't yet understand, and that thing turns out to be very important to you and others, you will want to have not retaliated. The case is exaggerated because of the outstanding genius of the main character and the outrageousness of his consequent discovery. And though, someone of this nature does need to be forgiven, my sentiment is that even people who are not, on the surface, so remarkable, also need to be forgiven, since it cannot be known what is under all surfaces.
I hope one of my readers can clarify this issue for me: if some particles are shot an immensely far distance at an incredibly small hole in a barrier and are caught on a second barrier a relatively close distance from the first, then a component of the momentum of each particle say, the vertical component, that hits the second barrier is known at the time the particle passes through the hole. I think this is because the hole is so small that if the particle were moves vertically when it comes upon the first barrier, it will not get through the first barrier. So that the vertical momentum of all the particles that hit the second barrier for the whole time before they passed the first barrier is known, but once they go through the hole, you learn something about the position of those particles and you forget, so to speak, everything you knew about the vertical momentum. I believe the result of such experiments is a spread of particles on the second barrier. Anyway, the spread is a function (which I don't know) of distance, speed, and type of particle so that if you put a hole in the second barrier you will be able to accurately predict the spread on a third barrier. It is probably not important to keep the distance between the barriers the same, since sometimes it will be desirable to keep the spread the same. But is the amount of vertical momentum really a function of distance? Like, when you shoot a bullet, the farther it travels, the more it diverges from the horizontal. But with a particle of light, is that true? And if the hole really is so small that any vertical momentum of a particle at the moment it is crossing the barrier will cause it to hit the barrier, then does the vertical momentum after crossing the barrier come from spin? If not, where? I guess the conditions of the medium through which the particle travels can sort of start to affect its vertical moment at any point in its path. But if either spin or the medium deflect the ball from the horizontal, then suppose they, or one of them, does so when the particle is flush with the barrier, with its center at the center of the vertical position of its hole. If the barrier has thickness greater than its radius plus the vertical distance it deflects over the horizontal distance of the barrier, then the particle will hit the first barrier in the hole, instead of the second barrier. This will hold for any deflection that begins while a particle is within the thickness of the barrier. So, it is advantageous to have a thin barrier unless the inside of the hole in the first barrier collect data on the collisions. If that is the case, and if the conditions of the medium affect the vertical momentum of the particle, a tunnel will serve the purpose of the experiment. Then, if a steady stream of particles is sent down a tube, do you expect collisions to increase with distance?
I am quite torn about the future. I am constantly worried about how I will spend my time three or four years from now. It is really silly and really frustrating. When I first left Madagascar, I went on a meditation retreat in South Africa. I planned the trip to South Africa to get another three month visa into Madagascar. Now, three or four days in, I really wanted to go to China right away. I was ready to cancel my flight to Madagascar. But as the retreat went on, I rebuilt my plan to go to Madagascar. I did not talk for the ten days I was on the retreat. Still, it was a social process to convince the world that I should go to Madagascar. There is a big debate you know. If you have a lot of juice to do something, some people say you need to put everything else aside and chase your dream. That is all well and good and to a certain extent, I don't think you can be happy if you don't. But think about the difference between the brute force approach and the calculated approach. That is one point. Another point is how often desire takes precedence over necessity. Then when the object is attained, the satisfaction is disproportionately small compared to the amount it was desired since satisfaction is related to necessity.
I don't understand what the difference is between syntax and semantics. Right now I think that semantics is useful for comparing two languages. If there is only one language, then syntax will be semantics. But when there are two languages, there will be two syntactical formations for the same semantics. OK, but that answers my question, go blog! Synonymous expressions in the same language are syntactically different but semantically the same. Wait, but is there a language, perhaps a programming language, in which no syntactically different expressions have the same semantics? Well, different code that produces the same output doesn't cut it here. It needs to be different code that results in the exact same computation. For me, there really is no strict sense of synonymy since the use of different expressions has a different effect. Like, I might consider an ESL student to have a bad vocabulary but a good command of grammar if, in talking about George Clooney's marital status, the student repeatedly refers to him as an unmarried man, but never as a bachelor. I don't really know the answer for computers though. Also, I guess two results that produce the same output for every input but require different computations are neither syntactically nor semantically equivalent. They won't be syntactically equivalent because the computer should do the same computation when given syntactically identical code. The will not be semantically equivalent because they will have different execution time and they will require different amounts of memory. But now, I am not really comfortable with the statement that the computer will perform the same computation twice, since the memory might be configured differently, that might effect run time, and there may be relevant environmental factors that are different for each execution.
The most important thing for the internet tycoons is to invest in is getting the internet to more people. I don't know where electricity is good or bad but it is necessary for the internet. Also, I am pretty sure that means we will need more electricity. Now, that means some of the super rich have a vested interest in the global use of electricity. The first thing to do is distribute the internet. The second is keeping information free. The 5/7ths of the world that doesn't use the internet is probably pretty poor. Poor people will not use the internet any more than they do now if everything costs money. So it doesn't really cut it to spread the internet without free information. But for the people that do use the internet now, we already know that free information is awesome.
I finished reading The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Casteneda. It is about the apprenticeship of a Peruvian anthropologist who studied at Berkeley to a Native American, Don Juan. The first part is an account of the events of the six year apprenticeship. The second is an attempt to conceptualize the apprenticeship. The second part was a lot less fun to read than the first. They use three drugs: a guide, Mescalito, and two allies Psilocybus Mexicana and Datura inoxia. Some pretty elaborate rituals surround the consumption of these drugs. In there use there is some emphasis on pragmatism; they are used to gain useful knowledge. In fact, they are tools for a man of knowledge. What I took from this book is that to take a drug is to have a relationship with that drug. Well, the idea of having a master sorcerer watching over you is kind of cool to, but it was pretty downplayed. The author said that a portion of the teachings were in the form of visual cues given by the master. You know, imagine the difference between learning mathematics from body language instead of chalk dust. The author ended up having his sense of reality shaken and so he stopped the apprenticeship. But that is where the good part of the book ends. The conceptualizing stuff may be useful for something, but I am not sure what. It does have a very clear and dispassionate quality to it, but the ceaseless introduction of new vocabulary really detracted from my enjoyment of that part of the book. Oh, thanks to a nice man in a nice hostel in Cape Town for recommending this book to me.
I watched 12 Years a Slave, Endless Love, Dallas Buyers Club, and Frozen. I liked 12 Years a Slave and Dallas Buyers Club. Endless Love did seem like an idealized version of my high school love. Frozen had a bit of the magic you expect from a great movie, but the plot is so terribly depressing that the movie isn't that good. I appreciated McConoughey or whatever in DBC. He went a bit Machinist but the movie was short on one liners. While I was watching 12 Years a Slave I wondered how it was going to turn into a movie. I haven't read the book, but it seems more real life than fiction.
Anyway, I talked to a lot of people today on the 13th of March. I talked to Mado about the history of the internet and keeping languages isolated as a teacher. I talked to Zoely about Ambatondrajaka. Chancelle showed me some pictures from various CNELA parties and helped me read a book she gave me. I talked to Lalao about Phoenix and Nanja about English. All in all, I did very little work today. My left knee has bothered me for a few days now. Oh, I talked to Wells and Sam on fb chat.
There was a party for CNELA in Andranovelona last week. I talked to Billy Head, an Englishman who has been here for five years, on the way up and back. He teaches at CNELA and at the university. He is a writer. I also played ping pong and pool, and I swam and sang a tiny bit of Karaoke. I told Daniel that I came here to learn about traditional culture. Zoely gave me some loaka. We went near the spring where the two main bottle water companies get their juice.
Now, after training for two days, my knee seems OK. I just finished watching the 37 episodes of Death Note. It is pretty great. It depicts how one can gain from a being adventurous and then how one can take it too far. The moment when I knew it was going to far was when lovers are treated like rivals.
Some observations. Fruit sellers pass through neighborhoods yelling out what they carry on their heads in a big basket. Bottle collectors also walk though with huge sacks. Despite having felt the first chills of winter, today must have been the hottest day of the year here in Tana. Or maybe it is because we felt the cold that it just seemed like the hottest day. Hmm...
I, uhh, wrote this over a long period of time without trying to make it to coherent so...well, I just want to put that out there.
And, I am planning a three month excursion to a language school in Japan. But today I played soccer with the Ramamgamihanta family. After, I talked with a boy who is in his early twenties about his math education at the Univ. of Antananarivo. I am pretty sure there is enough for me to do here for a while. But I can't live here because of the pollution. He inspired some confidence in me about staying in Madagascar. Actually, I am pretty keen on going to Japan. But I am certain that I want to learn math. I can't really afford to do that in Japan or the US, but here it is possible to be a full time student, living on savings from first world minimum wage. I'd appreciate some advice. Let me dish out some background. I planned to study some physics and computer science with an aim to improve my mathematical abilities. In fact, I have done that at Scottsdale community college and online. But now, I am putting this feeling of doing the most important thing first from the meditation session in South Africa on top of my desire to learn math instead of my desire to go to China.
I finished 'Amerika' by Kafka. I learned a lot of disturbing things, not by reading Kafka, but by reading some of the notes in the book. Like this guy Max Brod, who shamelessly promotes the book, was asked by Kafka, to burn all the writing that Kafka had not published. That is, Kafka wanted no posthumous publications. Of course, a large part of his work was unpublished. And it wasn't burnt... So I feel really bad about reading something a dead guy didn't want read. But the book was given me by my request and I was compelled to read it. Also, Kafka never actually went to the US. So it was fun to see what sort of things he could come up with. Actually, I wasn't alive when the book was supposed to take place, which was in the first half of the twentieth century. The was a lot of sort of inter European struggling. The book is a comedy and, accordingly, the main character got himself into so many situations that did not reflect his inner experiences. The last chapter seems slapped on for it is not mentioned how the protagonist gets from his lowly position at the end of the second to last chapter to the more agreeable position at the beginning of the last chapter.
I read a King Solomon's Ring, by Konrad Lorenz. I found it in the library at the British School. I grabbed it while waiting for someone, intending to put it back soon after. But the library was closed after I met with my colleague in translation. Anyway this book is a wild sort of diary about keeping animals. It is written by a military doctor turned zoologist who likes to read poetry. Now this guy really understands certain animal calls and that lets him make sort of a commercial claim in the book. But the anecdotes in the story are what makes it worth reading. He can tell a story well, but his narrative notes are a bit intrusive, like he is taking too much care of his reader. I really like his account of the water shrew, which is an animal that navigates primarily by muscle memory. He ends with a brief comparison between the wolf and the dove, asking which will be the example humans follow. The wolf, though, is the more civilized. The evidence of this is that a vanquished challenger to the position of the leader of his pack will present its neck to a leader who is unable to make the kill whereas the caged dove may kill one of its own kind.
I listened to The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells and read by Alex Foster. It is such a sad story. But actually the language seems so classic. I recommend this version to those who want to hear 'What the deuce?!' said properly. Anyway, the book left me feeling like we really ought to forgive. If the person who wrongs you does so for the sake of something you can't yet understand, and that thing turns out to be very important to you and others, you will want to have not retaliated. The case is exaggerated because of the outstanding genius of the main character and the outrageousness of his consequent discovery. And though, someone of this nature does need to be forgiven, my sentiment is that even people who are not, on the surface, so remarkable, also need to be forgiven, since it cannot be known what is under all surfaces.
I hope one of my readers can clarify this issue for me: if some particles are shot an immensely far distance at an incredibly small hole in a barrier and are caught on a second barrier a relatively close distance from the first, then a component of the momentum of each particle say, the vertical component, that hits the second barrier is known at the time the particle passes through the hole. I think this is because the hole is so small that if the particle were moves vertically when it comes upon the first barrier, it will not get through the first barrier. So that the vertical momentum of all the particles that hit the second barrier for the whole time before they passed the first barrier is known, but once they go through the hole, you learn something about the position of those particles and you forget, so to speak, everything you knew about the vertical momentum. I believe the result of such experiments is a spread of particles on the second barrier. Anyway, the spread is a function (which I don't know) of distance, speed, and type of particle so that if you put a hole in the second barrier you will be able to accurately predict the spread on a third barrier. It is probably not important to keep the distance between the barriers the same, since sometimes it will be desirable to keep the spread the same. But is the amount of vertical momentum really a function of distance? Like, when you shoot a bullet, the farther it travels, the more it diverges from the horizontal. But with a particle of light, is that true? And if the hole really is so small that any vertical momentum of a particle at the moment it is crossing the barrier will cause it to hit the barrier, then does the vertical momentum after crossing the barrier come from spin? If not, where? I guess the conditions of the medium through which the particle travels can sort of start to affect its vertical moment at any point in its path. But if either spin or the medium deflect the ball from the horizontal, then suppose they, or one of them, does so when the particle is flush with the barrier, with its center at the center of the vertical position of its hole. If the barrier has thickness greater than its radius plus the vertical distance it deflects over the horizontal distance of the barrier, then the particle will hit the first barrier in the hole, instead of the second barrier. This will hold for any deflection that begins while a particle is within the thickness of the barrier. So, it is advantageous to have a thin barrier unless the inside of the hole in the first barrier collect data on the collisions. If that is the case, and if the conditions of the medium affect the vertical momentum of the particle, a tunnel will serve the purpose of the experiment. Then, if a steady stream of particles is sent down a tube, do you expect collisions to increase with distance?
I am quite torn about the future. I am constantly worried about how I will spend my time three or four years from now. It is really silly and really frustrating. When I first left Madagascar, I went on a meditation retreat in South Africa. I planned the trip to South Africa to get another three month visa into Madagascar. Now, three or four days in, I really wanted to go to China right away. I was ready to cancel my flight to Madagascar. But as the retreat went on, I rebuilt my plan to go to Madagascar. I did not talk for the ten days I was on the retreat. Still, it was a social process to convince the world that I should go to Madagascar. There is a big debate you know. If you have a lot of juice to do something, some people say you need to put everything else aside and chase your dream. That is all well and good and to a certain extent, I don't think you can be happy if you don't. But think about the difference between the brute force approach and the calculated approach. That is one point. Another point is how often desire takes precedence over necessity. Then when the object is attained, the satisfaction is disproportionately small compared to the amount it was desired since satisfaction is related to necessity.
I don't understand what the difference is between syntax and semantics. Right now I think that semantics is useful for comparing two languages. If there is only one language, then syntax will be semantics. But when there are two languages, there will be two syntactical formations for the same semantics. OK, but that answers my question, go blog! Synonymous expressions in the same language are syntactically different but semantically the same. Wait, but is there a language, perhaps a programming language, in which no syntactically different expressions have the same semantics? Well, different code that produces the same output doesn't cut it here. It needs to be different code that results in the exact same computation. For me, there really is no strict sense of synonymy since the use of different expressions has a different effect. Like, I might consider an ESL student to have a bad vocabulary but a good command of grammar if, in talking about George Clooney's marital status, the student repeatedly refers to him as an unmarried man, but never as a bachelor. I don't really know the answer for computers though. Also, I guess two results that produce the same output for every input but require different computations are neither syntactically nor semantically equivalent. They won't be syntactically equivalent because the computer should do the same computation when given syntactically identical code. The will not be semantically equivalent because they will have different execution time and they will require different amounts of memory. But now, I am not really comfortable with the statement that the computer will perform the same computation twice, since the memory might be configured differently, that might effect run time, and there may be relevant environmental factors that are different for each execution.
The most important thing for the internet tycoons is to invest in is getting the internet to more people. I don't know where electricity is good or bad but it is necessary for the internet. Also, I am pretty sure that means we will need more electricity. Now, that means some of the super rich have a vested interest in the global use of electricity. The first thing to do is distribute the internet. The second is keeping information free. The 5/7ths of the world that doesn't use the internet is probably pretty poor. Poor people will not use the internet any more than they do now if everything costs money. So it doesn't really cut it to spread the internet without free information. But for the people that do use the internet now, we already know that free information is awesome.
I finished reading The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Casteneda. It is about the apprenticeship of a Peruvian anthropologist who studied at Berkeley to a Native American, Don Juan. The first part is an account of the events of the six year apprenticeship. The second is an attempt to conceptualize the apprenticeship. The second part was a lot less fun to read than the first. They use three drugs: a guide, Mescalito, and two allies Psilocybus Mexicana and Datura inoxia. Some pretty elaborate rituals surround the consumption of these drugs. In there use there is some emphasis on pragmatism; they are used to gain useful knowledge. In fact, they are tools for a man of knowledge. What I took from this book is that to take a drug is to have a relationship with that drug. Well, the idea of having a master sorcerer watching over you is kind of cool to, but it was pretty downplayed. The author said that a portion of the teachings were in the form of visual cues given by the master. You know, imagine the difference between learning mathematics from body language instead of chalk dust. The author ended up having his sense of reality shaken and so he stopped the apprenticeship. But that is where the good part of the book ends. The conceptualizing stuff may be useful for something, but I am not sure what. It does have a very clear and dispassionate quality to it, but the ceaseless introduction of new vocabulary really detracted from my enjoyment of that part of the book. Oh, thanks to a nice man in a nice hostel in Cape Town for recommending this book to me.
I watched 12 Years a Slave, Endless Love, Dallas Buyers Club, and Frozen. I liked 12 Years a Slave and Dallas Buyers Club. Endless Love did seem like an idealized version of my high school love. Frozen had a bit of the magic you expect from a great movie, but the plot is so terribly depressing that the movie isn't that good. I appreciated McConoughey or whatever in DBC. He went a bit Machinist but the movie was short on one liners. While I was watching 12 Years a Slave I wondered how it was going to turn into a movie. I haven't read the book, but it seems more real life than fiction.
Anyway, I talked to a lot of people today on the 13th of March. I talked to Mado about the history of the internet and keeping languages isolated as a teacher. I talked to Zoely about Ambatondrajaka. Chancelle showed me some pictures from various CNELA parties and helped me read a book she gave me. I talked to Lalao about Phoenix and Nanja about English. All in all, I did very little work today. My left knee has bothered me for a few days now. Oh, I talked to Wells and Sam on fb chat.
There was a party for CNELA in Andranovelona last week. I talked to Billy Head, an Englishman who has been here for five years, on the way up and back. He teaches at CNELA and at the university. He is a writer. I also played ping pong and pool, and I swam and sang a tiny bit of Karaoke. I told Daniel that I came here to learn about traditional culture. Zoely gave me some loaka. We went near the spring where the two main bottle water companies get their juice.
Now, after training for two days, my knee seems OK. I just finished watching the 37 episodes of Death Note. It is pretty great. It depicts how one can gain from a being adventurous and then how one can take it too far. The moment when I knew it was going to far was when lovers are treated like rivals.
Some observations. Fruit sellers pass through neighborhoods yelling out what they carry on their heads in a big basket. Bottle collectors also walk though with huge sacks. Despite having felt the first chills of winter, today must have been the hottest day of the year here in Tana. Or maybe it is because we felt the cold that it just seemed like the hottest day. Hmm...
I, uhh, wrote this over a long period of time without trying to make it to coherent so...well, I just want to put that out there.
And, I am planning a three month excursion to a language school in Japan. But today I played soccer with the Ramamgamihanta family. After, I talked with a boy who is in his early twenties about his math education at the Univ. of Antananarivo. I am pretty sure there is enough for me to do here for a while. But I can't live here because of the pollution. He inspired some confidence in me about staying in Madagascar. Actually, I am pretty keen on going to Japan. But I am certain that I want to learn math. I can't really afford to do that in Japan or the US, but here it is possible to be a full time student, living on savings from first world minimum wage. I'd appreciate some advice. Let me dish out some background. I planned to study some physics and computer science with an aim to improve my mathematical abilities. In fact, I have done that at Scottsdale community college and online. But now, I am putting this feeling of doing the most important thing first from the meditation session in South Africa on top of my desire to learn math instead of my desire to go to China.
Wednesday 15 January 2014
upright?
Father of host mother plus some kinds sitting on the commemorative stone in the front yard.
I went to the countryside for about twenty days. I stayed with a cousin of a teacher here at CNELA. IN his family there are five children: the oldest, ~15 is a girl, and the rest are boys. The girl and a seven year old boy sleep at their grandparents on their mom's side. I was told it was not because I was staying their. Anyway, I have my own bed; well, I have the bottom bunk. Up top are boys of ten and thirteen, Natolotra and Didi, respesctively. They are, in the majority of ways, more useful than me to the family. But I try to pull my weight. At first the petense of my visit was vacation. So I was treated like royalty. But eventually, I made it clear (lots of using the same words to mean different things) that I really want to stay for a while to learn Malagasy and farming. The parents sleep with a two or three year old in a big bed in the other room of the house.
The kitchen is out back in what what is a wrap around porch for people who can walk through the kitched wall. I say that because the house was built in 1957. There was a big fight with the French in '47 and the town, Antsarasoatra was burnt. The house resides on the southeast side of town, with the front door onthe west side, like all the houses in the village. There is a big church that has long services. There had been electricity in the village for three years up until about two months before I came. I mean, three or four of the twenty or thirty houses had electricty. So my mini solar panel because the town cell phone charger. In town there are a couple of places to buy oil and vinegar and salt and candy. There is a more serious like pasta and bread equipped place about fifteen minutes west of town. East of the house is a steep descent into a rice valley.
Its the town in the background
Right, but I harvested some rice and beat the grains off the stalks. The rice is dried in the sun on big mats before it is taken to a big, old, its-going-to-blow-up-any-minute machine that takes the encasing off of the rice. It costs 30 ariary per kilo to 'mitoto' the rice at this machine. I am staying with a rice merchent, married to an older sister of my host mom. He is happy to make 100 ariary per kilo at the market. The farmers sell for 1200 ariary and it calls 100 per kilo to transport the rice to the city. One ariary is a two thousand two hundredth of a dollar. Anyway, I can keep up with the work in short spurts, but the people in the village are really at a completely different level of physical usefullness. Like, I can chop wood with an axe, but like about as quickly as a seven year old.
Well, no sense in complaining. I am sure I will improve. Where I excell is in soccer. I brought a ball and I found that I am still capable of juggling pretty well. But I guess there is no sense in bragging either. I try to practice martial arts but it attracts a lot of attention. I read a decent amount until I finished my books. I learned that in the bustling part of the city, mouth type tobacco is prohibited and that home brewed alcohol, made mostly from sugar cane, is illegal. Of course, people can more or less freely drink professionally bottled alcohol, a lot of which is foreign. I wrote down some pretty interesting dreams. Like, some nights I remembered as many as five different segments. And there was a testing theme. Like I prepared, took, and got results from a test over the course of like two weeks worth of dreams.
I am in Tana, at CNELA. I am going to go to the English club meeting today. It is nice to be here, because, even though not eating between meals is nice, eating between meals is also nice. But really, I am working on paying for my visa. I almost don't want to talk about it. I didn't keep great records of the whole process and it frustrates me today. But my memory of this week is still fresh. I was given approval for a one year work visa. After a short confrontation about whether I had already paid, I was proved wrong and asked to pay (I confusd the transferable visa fee with the actually visa fee). But along with the visa, I also have to buy a one year resident's card, which will expire in nine months. The fee for the later is a whopping 228.67 Euros. Anyway, stomach it I did, perhaps my parents support needs mentioning here: thank you. After getting instructions on how to make the payment I headed to the bank to pay for a resident's card. At the bank I was informed I need a bank account to make the payment. Well, I said, sign me up. They said: you need a resident's card to open an acount. At this point my head blew up and it is a small miracle that I didn't completely metamorphisize into some sort of earthworm chasing and running away from itself like a dog angry with its tail. That reminds me: I went fishing for rice paddy fish in the river. We used bamboo poles. I got a sunburn and caught no fish, pre pubescent boys filled small sacks with fish. I made a tour of the different banks in the city and found one that permits one to open an account with , merely, a certificate of residence, rather than a residence card. I was fortunately able to provide said certificate after a pleasant trip to the Fokontany office in Antsahabe. Now I am waiting till tomorrow for the Ministry of Interior to stop partying so that I can show them the payment receipts for the visa and the resident's card.
Was this Christmas morning?
I finished Invitation to a Beheading by Nobokov in the first week of the New Year. There is one of those user reviews on the product: “Nobokov writes fiction like I should be written: ecstatically”. I thought, well great if the author is happy, but what about the reader. But really, this guy is in tune with the effect of his writing. The plot is at once predictable and fulfilling. He lays everything out every step of the way. For me there is a point in reading books, especially long ones, where I think there is no way the author can pull this book off, as in end it as well as it began. That feeling was drawn out in this book. And he ends it better than it began.
I read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It was good in a very different sense that Nabokov's book. Like the former is a very American book. It is like good by default. What I mean is that he interestingly explains topics that appeal to me. And the default part of it is that he there is a really wide range, and the weaving starts out very good. Like it is really a big mac vs. steak hachée type of thing. We just throw everything good together and as long as we have good arms, the result can't be bad. And it isn't (bad) in the case of Infinite Jest but he end is not that satisfying. It is like the author is admitting that he can't put everything in the book. You know, a book with a bad endling isn't a bad book though, especially when it is 1000 pages plus like 150 pgs of footnotes. I really like Hal and the whole facial correspondance issue. The depiction of the Tennis Academy makes me miss freshman year at Reed when my main tasks were sports and studies. All the drug stuff was informative and whatnot--especially the stuff about pot. And I really do like Gately, but I am just not sure about the spiritual connection he had at the end of the book. You know, its OK he wasn't an actual witness to the movie. And I see the parallel between media and drugs. There is even something nice about the twin heroes--one academic and drug affected, the other muscly and drug affected. I want something about Mario and his interest in media to sort of romantically Tie things together with Joelle and some type of light at the end of the tunnel for Hal. If that is done, I will forgive the lack of resolution at the national level, because I could at least project, but as it is I really don't know how the main characters end up and consequently don't dare think about how their environments are supposed to change. I did write a summary/review in the bush right after finishing the book, but I can't find it; this one is pretty hairy, but anyway, MOVE ON. There is a bit more to say about how grammar quirks are related to sort large scale physical quirks in movement and so on but right now I still sort of ruminating.
This was Christmas Eve
I read this book by Jack Kerouac, Visions of Gerard. It is from the perspective of a kid. The story is of the death of the little brother of this kid. There is definitely a gloominess to the book. And I read it in down time at CNELA; it is a library book. The little brother is made out to be a saint and the author struggles a bit with like the idea that it should be him who dies. But it is a bit boring. The writing is good, but it is very personal. It was like the author was subsuming his personal life into his life as a writer so that he could write other things later. I did connect a bit because I feel like my little brother is better than me, but Sam doesn’t get the praise for saintliness that this author attributed to the little boy. I really think that he exaggerated it a lot though.
I ate pig heart and I liked it.
Also: special congratulations to Delphine-Matt and Jo-Claude on family making.
Lastly: prayers go out to my grandpa.
Friday 20 December 2013
lens crafter
Do you think your Wu_Tang sword can defeat me?
Ghost face, that's what I have. Allways showing up and diseappering. My latest act was at CNELA teaching English again. It was lots of fun. I think I need to stick closer to the curriculum next time, because though my students had about average test scores, I can do a lot better. One of my students did get one of the highest scores so I am proud of him and also of the rest of my students, even those who didn't pass. Because each of them made an effort to learn something, and it was my fault if what they learned from me didn't help with the exam. I hope it helps in a different way.
We had a party on Wednesday. It was a great party. They served duck. Each person in the hall stood up to introduce themselves. I copied the format everyone used so I could say I my name and my job in Malagasy. There is a sort of begining dance at the begining of a celebration. I participated. There was a gift exchange. I got a ceramic pink elephant. I just gave the elepant to two girls who play outside near my apartment. After the party I went to a bar with a teacher and his friend. I was pretty inspired by the faith of the teacher in the US. He said that he is glad the US polices the world. The US put liberty first and is therefore supported by God. That is why, he says, I shouldn't fear our decline.
We met some Peace Corps Volunteers. They seemed pretty nice but they left to meet someone, inviting us to tag along. I talked to a British guy for a while. He just finished some kind of management gig down near Toliar. He left for the UK yesterday, on Thursday the 19th of Dec. So after talking to him, we did catch the PCVs, who were pretty nice. Some were new, some old, most younger than me. I talked to the brother of my colleague's friend in French. We talked about girls here. Like, I have to learn Malagasy before finding a girlfriend. He didn't really agree, because a girl to whom I am close could teach me Malagasy. I still feel like prudence is the best policy at this juncture. After, the teacher went home to his wife, and I went to another bar with the PCVs. There were a lot of foreingers and beautiful Malagasy girls. I guess it was pretty obvious what was going on. I tried my best to speak Malagasy, but eventually my headache took my outside to catch a cab.
Anyway, Merry Christmas, gj to New Mexico on same sex marriage legalization, and be calm come the new year to Washington and Colorado. I'll be 60 clicks north of Tana trying to learn Malagasy soon! Is it weird that the only songs to which I know the lyrics are from Disney movies? I guess the party was on Wednesday and today is Friday the 20th. It is a holiday because of voting. So give your best wishes for the future of Madagascar.
I can't believe I still intend to watch Naruto after the Chikara arc, which completely clashes with both Bee's training of Naruto and the war prepartions in which Konoha failed to mention Kabuto to its Allies.
Other random tidbits. I am using a distro of linux whose default default audio player is a video player and even when you open a file with no video it opens a window and plays the song. But i am like having enough of songs before there over and closing the window, but i obviously dont stop the song first because that should just sort of come along with closing the window, otherwise i would be minimizing it wouldnt i? the song keeps playing... on the flipside, i learned that if i just hold the cursor over the icon of an audio file, it starts playing after a few seconds, and stops when i move the cursor off of the icon.
I finally finished Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics by John Lyons. The beginning was super interesting, since it came packed with fun language quirks and had plenty of examples. As the book goes on, the clarity decreases as the number of examples goes down. It is pretty useless after the stuff of Chomsky. I started it in May and read the first four hundred pages by like July when I took it to SEC and talked with Jonathan and Renee's wife's older brother. Like, flying planes are dangerous and flying planes is dangerous. Or eating apples is healthy and eating apples are healthy, but not the ones that are like the one given to Snow White. The whole idea of deep structure vs surface structure seems like there is stuff we don't understand and stuff we do understand.
I watched 8 Diagrams Pole Fighter, Five Deadly Venoms, and The 36 Chambers of Shaolin. The last is by far the best. It tells the story of someone who learns kung fu to fight injustice. Of course, despite his late start, he turns out to be a prodigy and is held in high regard by the other monks.
Ghost face, that's what I have. Allways showing up and diseappering. My latest act was at CNELA teaching English again. It was lots of fun. I think I need to stick closer to the curriculum next time, because though my students had about average test scores, I can do a lot better. One of my students did get one of the highest scores so I am proud of him and also of the rest of my students, even those who didn't pass. Because each of them made an effort to learn something, and it was my fault if what they learned from me didn't help with the exam. I hope it helps in a different way.
We had a party on Wednesday. It was a great party. They served duck. Each person in the hall stood up to introduce themselves. I copied the format everyone used so I could say I my name and my job in Malagasy. There is a sort of begining dance at the begining of a celebration. I participated. There was a gift exchange. I got a ceramic pink elephant. I just gave the elepant to two girls who play outside near my apartment. After the party I went to a bar with a teacher and his friend. I was pretty inspired by the faith of the teacher in the US. He said that he is glad the US polices the world. The US put liberty first and is therefore supported by God. That is why, he says, I shouldn't fear our decline.
We met some Peace Corps Volunteers. They seemed pretty nice but they left to meet someone, inviting us to tag along. I talked to a British guy for a while. He just finished some kind of management gig down near Toliar. He left for the UK yesterday, on Thursday the 19th of Dec. So after talking to him, we did catch the PCVs, who were pretty nice. Some were new, some old, most younger than me. I talked to the brother of my colleague's friend in French. We talked about girls here. Like, I have to learn Malagasy before finding a girlfriend. He didn't really agree, because a girl to whom I am close could teach me Malagasy. I still feel like prudence is the best policy at this juncture. After, the teacher went home to his wife, and I went to another bar with the PCVs. There were a lot of foreingers and beautiful Malagasy girls. I guess it was pretty obvious what was going on. I tried my best to speak Malagasy, but eventually my headache took my outside to catch a cab.
Anyway, Merry Christmas, gj to New Mexico on same sex marriage legalization, and be calm come the new year to Washington and Colorado. I'll be 60 clicks north of Tana trying to learn Malagasy soon! Is it weird that the only songs to which I know the lyrics are from Disney movies? I guess the party was on Wednesday and today is Friday the 20th. It is a holiday because of voting. So give your best wishes for the future of Madagascar.
I can't believe I still intend to watch Naruto after the Chikara arc, which completely clashes with both Bee's training of Naruto and the war prepartions in which Konoha failed to mention Kabuto to its Allies.
Other random tidbits. I am using a distro of linux whose default default audio player is a video player and even when you open a file with no video it opens a window and plays the song. But i am like having enough of songs before there over and closing the window, but i obviously dont stop the song first because that should just sort of come along with closing the window, otherwise i would be minimizing it wouldnt i? the song keeps playing... on the flipside, i learned that if i just hold the cursor over the icon of an audio file, it starts playing after a few seconds, and stops when i move the cursor off of the icon.
I finally finished Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics by John Lyons. The beginning was super interesting, since it came packed with fun language quirks and had plenty of examples. As the book goes on, the clarity decreases as the number of examples goes down. It is pretty useless after the stuff of Chomsky. I started it in May and read the first four hundred pages by like July when I took it to SEC and talked with Jonathan and Renee's wife's older brother. Like, flying planes are dangerous and flying planes is dangerous. Or eating apples is healthy and eating apples are healthy, but not the ones that are like the one given to Snow White. The whole idea of deep structure vs surface structure seems like there is stuff we don't understand and stuff we do understand.
I watched 8 Diagrams Pole Fighter, Five Deadly Venoms, and The 36 Chambers of Shaolin. The last is by far the best. It tells the story of someone who learns kung fu to fight injustice. Of course, despite his late start, he turns out to be a prodigy and is held in high regard by the other monks.
Saturday 14 December 2013
Base
So guys, I am not sure what the reason is, but I am really starting to enjoy life here. Part of it is taking internet courses on computer science. Of course, I could do that anywhere. But here, the internet connection is dicey on the best days. Like, I am writing this offline, dicey. So it is a bit challenging just to have the chance to complete the lessons.
Another thing that is OK is that my roommate and I have come to a bit of an agreement. I buy a lot of the food and keep the kitchen clean, and he lets me by with less than half the rent. Thanks to mom's packages, we have exchanged movies. He is a good listener but doesn't like to speak about his work.
Some areas here, especially the alleys, are like, is there a war going on, bad. Lots of people her know my name. And I mean like some people whom I don't recognize shout my name as I walk. I am a bit afraid to talk about a book while I am reading it, but a sort of guru character in the book Infinite Jest says to be careful not to attract more than your own weight.
In other news, some students thanked me for teaching them at the end of the last class. It made me feel good like it sort of dissolved some anger I accumulated trying to be interesting for three months. Teaching was mostly fun, but I did sort of fall into habits that weren't so productive. So I am really happy that some students forgave me for this.
The teachers are pretty supportive. But Zoely stands out: she gives me lots of suggestions and she even lets me use her photocopies. It is great because it helps me deliver some things that the students expect.
I plan to go to Tsarasoatra later this month, to the home of one of Zoely's cousins. It is 60km north of Tana and there is a taxi bus stop within walking distance of the town. The rice harvest is coming up, but in Tsarasoatra rice is only planeted once a year so it wont be planted again until later in 2014 than I am able to stay due to my contract with the school. I plan on staying there for a part of the break in teaching from Dec 19 to mid April.
There is also wushu, which is fun in a big way. I get to listen to instructions in Malagasy. The master doesn't give us much time, but there are a few students who are leagues better than me. There is a good crowd there every weekend. We practice Saturday all day and Sunday morning. I am petitioning for a Wednesday afternoon session because a five day lapse leaves me wrecked when the training starts.
Another thing that is OK is that my roommate and I have come to a bit of an agreement. I buy a lot of the food and keep the kitchen clean, and he lets me by with less than half the rent. Thanks to mom's packages, we have exchanged movies. He is a good listener but doesn't like to speak about his work.
Some areas here, especially the alleys, are like, is there a war going on, bad. Lots of people her know my name. And I mean like some people whom I don't recognize shout my name as I walk. I am a bit afraid to talk about a book while I am reading it, but a sort of guru character in the book Infinite Jest says to be careful not to attract more than your own weight.
In other news, some students thanked me for teaching them at the end of the last class. It made me feel good like it sort of dissolved some anger I accumulated trying to be interesting for three months. Teaching was mostly fun, but I did sort of fall into habits that weren't so productive. So I am really happy that some students forgave me for this.
The teachers are pretty supportive. But Zoely stands out: she gives me lots of suggestions and she even lets me use her photocopies. It is great because it helps me deliver some things that the students expect.
I plan to go to Tsarasoatra later this month, to the home of one of Zoely's cousins. It is 60km north of Tana and there is a taxi bus stop within walking distance of the town. The rice harvest is coming up, but in Tsarasoatra rice is only planeted once a year so it wont be planted again until later in 2014 than I am able to stay due to my contract with the school. I plan on staying there for a part of the break in teaching from Dec 19 to mid April.
There is also wushu, which is fun in a big way. I get to listen to instructions in Malagasy. The master doesn't give us much time, but there are a few students who are leagues better than me. There is a good crowd there every weekend. We practice Saturday all day and Sunday morning. I am petitioning for a Wednesday afternoon session because a five day lapse leaves me wrecked when the training starts.
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