Tejas Adoxography

The College Decision

2007-04-11T05:21:00.000-07:00

It seems as if everyone is figuring out where to go for college this time of year, and if my College Monster project would ever take off I had imagined the article at this time to be a compendium of personal experiences about how all of us last year's graduates decided on a college. Well, here's still hoping to get some other responses.

Unlike my other articles where I spent time trying to write in a comprehensive and objective way, I decided that it was pretty much impossible to write something like that in this case, so instead you all get my own personal story, specific to my case and therefore probably not helpful at all to any of you, but it's yours to read on the offchance that you might gleam some advice.

I started out my college admissions season applying for six schools, and eventually getting into four of them. I had started out applying to MIT, which had always been my dream school, and somewhere along the line from early childhood to 12th grade, CalTech got thrown in there as a top school as well. So with either of those I was set, although I wasn't confident at all at getting into any of them. I had three UC's as safety schools, figuring I'd get into at least one of them, although I really didn't know anything about any of them. At the last minute, I threw in Stanford as a token "Hey this will be fun if Sean also gets in".

My mistake during this time was not really paying attention to college at all. I had just figured out my hierarchy of colleges: MIT, CalTech, Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, and I probably figured that if I somehow got into Stanford, then MIT/CalTech would've been there too. So in any event, I'd have my list of schools to run down and choose one, and if not any of them, I'd be headed to CCSF and be done with it. All would have been well and I'd have no article to write today.

As it turns out, I got deferred from CalTech and then deferred from MIT, from the early admission round to the regular round, so I'd be finding out about all my colleges in March. First UC Irvine rolled in telling me I had gotten accepted (although I never applied), then San Diego invited me to New Admits' Day although I wouldn't get the actual acceptance letter until several days later. Then I got my rejection letters from MIT and CalTech, at which point it was all UCSD, and then I got the UCLA and Berkeley letters, and I was all set and ready to go to Berkeley (per my pre-decided hierarchy). Then Stanford, fashionable entrance as always, mails there letter several days after everyone else, and now all of a sudden I've got a conundrum on my hands.

Now I should note that perhaps my biggest mistake was really not looking into any of the colleges. I mean sure, you look over at all the rankings and see (Oh! So and so is ranked best program. I've got to go there!), but how does a blanket #1 ranking at one school compare to a blanket #3 ranking at another school? Does that mean the #1 was magnitudes better than the #3? Or was there only a marginal, subjective difference? What kind of criteria did this ranking organization even use? What if enrollment diversity or financial aid was one of the major factors, but you really just want to know about quality of education? Or vice versa?

You could also take a look at the public information that universities offer about their programs. School pamphlets and brochures, but most especially school websites. These can be helpful if you look hard enough, but a lot of the time, and especially on the shallowest of passes, these kinds of resources all spout the same feely-but-non-specific information. For example, Berkeley's Department of Architecture has this to say about the program's focus: "Because of the great diversity of offerings in the College of Environmental Design and in the Department of Architecture in areas such as building environments, practice of design, design methods, structures, construction, history, social and cultural factors in design, and design itself, it is possible to obtain either a very broad and general foundation or to concentrate in one or several areas." I'm sure that just about any other architecture school says the same basic thing on their website.

You might be able to take a look at classes, and what their curriculi specify. The hardest part about this is knowing what classes you're going to be taking (which requires some digging through the website for your major), and even then it may be heard to find information, or even know what that information really means. For example, the description of Math 54 (linear algebra & differential equations) at Berkeley say this: Basic linear algebra; matrix arithmetic and determinants. Vector spaces; inner product as spaces. Eigenvalues and eigenvectors; linear transformations. Homogeneous ordinary differential equations; first-order differential equations with constant coefficients. Fourier series and partial differential equations. Most high school students still being at the Trigonometry or Calculus level, it's impossible to have any idea what eigenstuff is, and most students, not really knowing what their majors will entail, can't have any idea about how or if any of this stuff applies to what they'll be doing or how important any of it really is, making most research into publicly available information useless.

What many students try to get away from either public information or discussions is a sense for the education philosophy of a particular school. As noted before, most schools are pretty vague and non-specific with their public information, so it's hard to tell. A sometimes dangerous trap is to catch onto something someone said and begin taking that as fact. For example, when I was debating between MIT and CalTech for my college choice hierarchy (this was before I would find out that I would get either), I had often heard that CalTech was much more theory-based, and found itself more on the cutting-edge, if more abstract, side of science, while MIT had a much greater focus on real-world practice. Now, this was a nice and clean-cut way to qualify the differences between both colleges, so it sounded nice and I was inclined to believe it. In retrospect, I'm not sure if this is true at all - I have no idea what source I had heard it from, and I surely have no idea what source that source derived this information from. It's also a very general statement and I'd very much doubt that it's a true blanket statement for all programs at either school, or that it really restricts your academic choice (it's ultimately within your power to decide if you want to study/research into a more theoretical or practical line of studies). In all likelihood, some guy probably decided to say "MIT's does more practical stuff, and CalTech does more theoretical stuff" and people started just taking that as fact. Another common example is that almost everyone will say, "Berkeley Engineering is really competitive. Almost anyway will stab you in the back for a grade." A lot of times, especially at the high-school-about-to-head-off-for-college level, where you're soaking up all sorts of information and speculation like a sponge, especially from people who really don't know or have a limited scope of knowledge about a particular college (a freshman student like me, for example!), generalizations like that just tend to sprout from off-the-cuff remarks, and snowball into de facto knowledge.

Even knowing anything about the curriculum being taught tells you very little about the actual quality of education - after a year of experience here at Berkeley I can definitely verify what many other college students have said: the quality of education is highly variable from teacher-to-teacher, and perhaps even moreso, teaching assistant/graduate student instructor to TA/GSI (at Berkeley anyway). With a crap teacher or crap GSI, you'll learn absolutely nothing (or you'll have to do all the learning on your own), and good ones will be able to greatly facilitate your education. Don't make the mistake of thinking of thinking, "Oh, so-and-so is a prestigious university, so at least I know I'm not going to have a completely horrible/incompetent professor there", or also thinking that little-known universities preclude good teachers. How do you know if a place has good teachers or not? All of this information is fairly subjective, although generally I've found that getting advice from older students (especially TA's and GSI's in my classes, on other professors in that department) is a ton of help - they seem to have a lot of experience with professors, especially within their major and can be extremely insightful. However, this tends to have the problem of a small sample size, and for high school students this doesn't really help at all. A bit amusingly, I've found that another great resource that solves both problems is http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/, which is exactly what it sounds like - a compendium of student-written ratings for various professors. Now, there's obvious potential for bias, so keep in mind you'll need to sift through for the more insightful comments rather than taking the actual rating numbers. You can use that site to look up specific professors and read comments, or find all the professors working in a particular department.

For example, if I wanted to check out the comments on professors in Berkeley Bioengineering, I might simply grab a listing of all Biology teachers and take a look:

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/SelectTeacher.jsp?the_dept=All&sid=1072&orderby=TDept&letter=B

Even better, I'd go to the Bioengineering site and take a look at the recommended curriculum, which handily outlines the general coursepath for all four years of your college education.

http://bioeng.berkeley.edu/program/bioemajor.php

After that I might go to the college class search and find the classes I might be taking in the first semester, or even the future:

http://schedule.berkeley.edu/srchfall.html

And then look up the professors teaching those classes.

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Well, it seems as if my subjective personal narrative of my college-choosing experience has veered off into objective analytical commentary once again. Well, in short, I never really did any of the stuff I mentioned above. I was all set on resigning my fate to Berkeley (without any real research, just based on the assumption that "Well, it's more prestigious than UCLA/UCSD right?") when the Stanford admission letter rolled in, and now I was in a bit of a conundrum.

There were a lot of people with strong opinions, mostly towards Stanford for the obvious (but in retrospective, naive and foolhardy) basis of prestigiousness. Well it's Stanford. Everyone wants to go to Stanford. Stanford is famous. The Google Guys came out of Stanford. Who the heck comes out of Berkeley? And admittedly, my personal feelings leaned that way as well. At my school at least, everybody went to Berkeley. Each year we'd send a dozen or so kids to the school. But when was the last time we saw a kid go to one of the elite private schools? In my mind, I also tried to imagine myself as a prospective employer, and I could definitely imagine a sort of exclusive aura on the guy with Stanford on his resumé, while I thought of the guy from Berkeley as more of a common ore. In retrospect, all of that talk about prestigiousness was just extremely superficial junk that parents and maybe even teachers, who are all years removed from college (and in my case, immigrant parents and teachers who never actually experienced the college system here but simply heard of places the legendary placecs like Stanford and MIT.) believed heavily. Once you're actually in college and settle in, all of the auras of different schools that you regarded as a high school student sort of fade away - the belief that Stanford is a more "prestigious" school or that the other UC's are "less prestigious" doesn't really register anymore, and projecting myself again as a prospective employer, I found it very difficult now to see how a student's particular college is a really relevant factor.

With that "prestigiousness" myth dispelled (hopefully - unfortunately for many high school students it's both the worst and most common reason they decide on a college), I'll move on to the four major reasons I did decide on Berkeley over Stanford. They're not meant to be a comprehensive list of reasons you should consider, and they certainly weren't all good reasons (in fact, retrospectively none of them were), but they were my initial reasons, and thus the only ones I can authoritatively write about from personal experience.

Friends going to Berkeley, none going to Stanford
Support-structure philosophy
Cost
Failure insecurities

I hate to say this was the defining reason I came here, because it wasn't, but at the end of the day, I think the dealmaker for Berkeley and the dealbreaker for Stanford was that at Berkeley, I'd have a significant contingent of friends who would be going there with me - friends I very much wanted to keep and share the same college experience with. While a lot of people might view this as a cop-out from forging ahead and blazing my own trail with a brand-new network at Stanford, and clinging onto some security blanket of high-school friends at Berkeley, I saw it a lot differently. To me, Stanford, while it seemed much more fun and alluring, felt a lot like abandoning all the old friends I had for greener pastures, and both then and now I desperately wanted to hold my existing social web together, not really for fear of making new friends or having no friends, but because for me that web was darn-near the most treasured thing I had to own. With college it's inevitable that people had to split apart, and since one can't obviously go everywhere, I made do with what allowed me to keep close to as many people as possible - still close enough to home to keep with all the people going to community college, situated en-route to Davis, and most of all going to college with the small group of people who were going to Berkeley. I think my view was shaped in large part by my high school experience - I left for my high school with more or less one close friend, while nearly the entire rest of the class went over to other major high school in our district. For the most part, contact and friendships with all those people who went away died off with the distance and different schools, but at the same time my friendship with the one friend who had come to this high school with me is to this day one of the closest friendships I have, and one that I honestly couldn't imagine a life without. All the others who went to a different school? There's not so much a sting or pang anymore, as there are simply moments of melancholy and regret that I couldn't - or didn't - keep those relationships alive. In high school I went on to find friendships that developed into even closer or more integral parts of my life than my friendships in middleschool, and it was the last thing I wanted to let go.

How did that all turn out? Only a year removed from high school, I don't know if I can really give a definitive answer, but from my own subjective experience and attempted objective observation of others, it doesn't seem as if going off to college with all your friends really makes any sort of difference - knowing a dozen students while your daily interaction might bring you in contact with any of the 30,000 students here doesn't significantly help or inhibit your ability to socialize and form new networks in any way - many of the people I knew last year have truly blossomed into an entirely new network of friends and contacts, more or less that trailblazing, starting from scratch social experience that they said I'd find at Stanford. On the other hand, there are others who didn't plunge head-first into the social scene, at least not as quickly, and are a bit more isolated in their freshman year of college than they were in their senior year of high school, but not necessarily their freshman year of high school. From observation and retrospect, I think the various social lives that resulted came about from the personality and goals of the individual, rather than having anything to do with whether or not anyone else from high school came along to college. For me, personally, the kind of network I imagined - the close-knit high school group that might simply grow to include the new contacts and networks that were made - never really materialized. Some friends stick around, but at the same time there are many who are just as eager to shed the inhibitions of their high school bonds and start a brand new life from scratch, and I tend to think most everyone, at least to an extent, is inclined towards the latter. For almost everyone, college is about finding a path. In high school you're fed assembly-style through the same pre-packaged education, but it's in college that you find your independence and niche, and choose the path towards the career and even person you want to be. At least a little bit of that involves some experimentation and exploration, and while it doesn't necessarily demand a complete abandonment of the old life, at least a part of that life is shifted to a lower priority, at least in the present, in order to permit for the true independence that allows it to happen. So a year after I had envisioned a college life including the same high school cast, I find a lot of them, including some who were at one point the closest and most integral relationships, off pursuing their own lives. After a long while fighting it, I think I'm starting to come to the same conclusion that perhaps everyone else had already prepared themselves for before we had even gotten to last year's graduation - that with the move to college, and the makeup of individuals with different interests and classes and majors that find even more familiar and relatable niches in a broad and diverse student body, a distancing and breakdown of your former relationships is inevitable to some extent, and you can't really depend on the assumption that anyone is going to be able to stick around with you forever.

The second reason I went with my choice of Berkeley over Stanford was the support system structure. During my college decisions process, I had made an overnight stay at Stanford, and had made a somewhat less informative day-tour of Berkeley. The most drastic difference I had perceived between the two schools was the support structure. In my stay and the various informational activities at Stanford, one of the emphases was the vast support structure available at Stanford - there were academic centers and tutors and numerous other resources available to help students out, and in addition to that the entire community seemed.... well, like a community. In my brief stay at the dorms, everyone there seemed immensely close-knit, far more than any I've experienced or witnessed here at Berkeley. In short, Stanford was the one that seemed a lot like a natural progression from high school. Berkeley, on the other hand, was subject to the biased comments I had received offhand and the limited day-tour I got; Berkeley was the place where you were thrown to the wolves and had to find a way to fend, learn, and organize for yourself, because you sure weren't going to receive any help from your compatriots in the Engineering department. While that perception was indeed drastic and exaggerated, in my experience so far the 'fend for yourself' aspect has very much applied - while in high school, everything from homework assignments and lectures were spoon-fed to you, here at Berkeley much of your education and success is up to your own initiative - 500-person lectures will blast by if you're not able to keep up with what's going on, and it's really up to you to take the initiative to put in the extra mile in classes or during office hours, start or join your own student organizations, or even make new friends. It's very unlike the high school experience, where teachers can tailor classes to meet the needs of a 30-student classroom, and where teachers will spell out each homework assignments and take you to task individually if you haven't been keeping up. Most of all, it's very unlike the high school atmosphere where a small school and classes with the same people day-in-and-day-out, year-after-year, more or less force social relationships and professional partnerships to develop. Berkeley has been anything but that experience, but on the contrary I very much believed then and still somewhat believe now that Stanford would have been something much more akin to the high school experience. While not a bad thing, and while I very much wanted to hold onto my existing social web from high school, I ultimately thought that the Berkeley corporate culture if you will, forcing students to develop independence, fit the kind of life I wanted to start pursuing more, and better fit the kind of culture that I believe the professional workplace demands - self-driven individuals capable of working independently. And so this reason was my overriding 'official' and justified reason I ended up with Berkeley over Stanford. I'll tell you in another five years whether or not this works out.

The next issue is one that every student, no matter their situation, will have to consider, and for my parents I think it was probably the biggest factor. While everyone else at my school was rooting for Stanford (being the most prestigious), my dad had made the valid point that the reason Stanford was being unanimously pushed without reservation was because none of them were actually paying the bill. In truth, cost aside I think my parents wanted me to go to Stanford as well, but cost, especially when you've also got two-college bound siblings in the coming years, tends to take precedent over your own personal feelings and inclinations. While I'm sure my parents wouldn't have objected if I had chosen Stanford based on cost alone, and while I'm sure that almost all parents would find a way to support their child with where ever they decided to go, from a responsibility standpoint I found it too difficult to ask my parents to foot the huge bill that a private college needed - the near-$50,000 per year that Stanford would have cost was enough to cover both myself and my sister to go to college, or even both my siblings if they were to end up at the lower-cost CSUs. The counterargument for this was that I would make up the extra tuition in no time - the higher income I'd make as a Stanford graduate would far outweigh the tuition premium I would be paying, and in addition at Stanford there was a greater potential to meet the kind of world-class geniuses, or get involved with the next up-and-coming projects or research or start-ups, and really hit it big, something that would be much harder at a place like Berkeley. (all the old adages about "it's not what you know, but who" and "seizing opportunities" applied here). When you get past the speculation and take a look at the actual numbers, however, the first argument doesn't really pan out - the difference in starting salaries is usually something less than 10% - let's say the difference between a Berkeley CS graduate and Stanford CS graduate was 70,000 vs 77,000, a 7,000 or 10% difference. A full six years at Berkeley (four years bachelor and two year's master) would end up costing around $150,000, assuming no major tuition changes, while a full six years at Stanford would have cost around $300,000. At even a $10,000 difference in salary, it'd take 15 years to make up that difference - a long ways off and even more to the point, not fast enough to help my parents repay the cost of my education, or help my siblings pay their way through theirs. The second argument I'll talk about in the next paragraph, but the chances of that are small, despite the few highly publicized cases; the actual average college graduate tends to make, well, somewhere around the median, which as I've just shown doesn't make a lot of financial sense, at least in my situation.

I'd like to caution everyone else on purely making this a financial decision, even though this is what I somewhat did. Regarding the cost, I turned my analysis into a purely cost-benefit rationale, and at the end Berkeley came out ahead in this regard (as almost any California public school will). But there are innumerable other factors that can't be quantified - the kind of social life you want, the kind of independence you want to gain, the geographical location you want to spend the next for years of your life, or even how much you value the actual education you get, rather than simply its ability to find you a job in the workforce. For myself, my own personality issues and sense of responsibility prevented me from ever being able to consider those aspects - college to me is first and foremost an educational institution, and while you make what auxiliary education and personal development and experience as you can, I don't think I could have ever asked my parents to spend more to allow me to indulge in those strictly 'luxury' aspects of college if the level of education itself couldn't justify it, and in any case I don't think it could have ever been fair if I were allowed to indulge myself with 50k a year at Stanford while my siblings were left to make do with whatever their more conservative UC or CSU educations could afford them.

Last of all, the reason for not-Stanford stemmed from a thought I knew was in the back of my mind the whole time, yet one which I never readily admitted to myself until after the decision had been all set and done. Throughout my consideration of Stanford, and a sort of accumulation of all the other pros and cons that came along, was my perception of raised expectations if I were to go to Stanford, and as a result a morbid fear that I would fail there. This is perhaps my most irrational of reasons, but one that I haven't ever been able to shake off, even now. Things were all fine and dandy when it was simply a personal decision. In a world of complete isolation, I didn't owe anything to anybody. I would be taking out a college loan myself, that I'd have to pay back. In the meantime I could stay and study as long as I wanted, and decide to study whatever I wanted, and not have to be responsible for anything except forcing myself to endure the various drawbacks of a life with a low-paying job. Unfortunately, I don't live in an isolated world, and as soon as the decisions process started I could start feeling expectations mount. I might be the first person from my school to go to a place like Stanford in a long time, and if you go to Stanford, that meant you were good. Real good. And if you're that good, you don't fail - people don't go to Stanford to flunk out. Or even to become mediocre. The people that go to
Stanford are brilliant and make changes to the world. Those were the expectations, anyway, or at least the expectations I perceived. At Berkeley I might go there and no one would expect any more out of me than the dozen other students that also went there, or the dozens more that would go there each successive years. But if I were going to Stanford, that meant I was something special - a cut above the group that went to Berkeley every year, and in that case I damn well better be brilliant. After all, why send the guy out to a hallowed institution like Stanford if he's just going to perform like everyone else who went to Berkeley, or LA, or San Diego, or Davis? The same rationale flowed into all my other considerations, although these were perhaps more well-grounded. What was the point of spending more than twice the tuition to send a student to a private school, if he was going to end up performing just like everyone else at a public school? What was the point of abandoning your friends to pursue glory at a place like Stanford, if you never achieved it? Even worse, what if I were to just completely flame out? Not only perform mediocrely, but to simply be a complete bust? It would have made me the greatest waste of hype, money, and abandoner of friends ever. For failure, it's one thing for it to happen when you're doing the same thing as everyone else - not everyone will turn out to be successful 100% of the time. But by going for Stanford, I would've made myself out to be in pursuit of some greater level of success, and in a situation like Stanford I would have been given every advantage to really become something great, and would have every expectation to do so.

Now, this line of thinking was completely irrational, and I knew it from the beginning. In my personal case, I think I have too many self-consciousness issues and too grand and pessimistic an imagination of the consequences of things. So I don't write about this particular reason out of possibly giving anyone insight, but for the sake of completeness and also to dissuade anyone who might on the offchance be thinking these same thoughts.

So at the end of April, these were the reasons that summed up my decision - my four dealmakers or dealbreakers. In truth, many or all of them turned out to be horrible reasons, and if I were to do it again, and do it right, I'd be doing a ton more research and have taken every opportunity I could to actually observe and experience classes and student life at the college - the two nights I spent at Stanford and the one day I spent at Berkeley provided more insight than any other information I had found, and if it were possible I think the best possible way to get a feel for a university is to spend an extended period of time there both in-class and with student social events. For those of you high school students, just about the best thing you can do is to sign up for those overnight host programs, or if you're close enough, look up classes and visit them youreelves.

Being far more personal and subjective than most of my other College Monster pieces, I'm sorry that I couldn't craft something more explanatory and insightful, but hopefully you'll all be able to gleam some useful tidbit of information through my experience.mwjmiae,blogspot.com

Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, and Writing Complexity Metrics for the Heathen Illiterate

2007-03-13T18:38:00.000-07:00

Swept by overwhelming demand, I now present to you, the masses, the sacred art of writing complexity metrics:

What you say!? You've never heard of this holiest of holy arts? Not a whisper of Gunning-Fog or a faint recognizance of Flesch-Kincaid? You've never even known a complex word! Oh, poor child, you poor, miserable, ignorant fool of a child. How our state's heretical education system has failed once again. Well, gather around then, open your minds, and prepare to release your old, worn-out conventions on the metrics of writing.

What are writing complexity metrics, first of all? They are, as name implies, metrics of writing complexity, or measurements of how difficult your writing is to read, for those of you who don't read at a Flesch-Kincaid proficiency of 12.52 or lower. Flesch-Kincaid? Ah, yes, Flesch-Kincaid, along with a rival metric system called Gunning Fog, comprise the two most widely used and authoritative of writing complexity metrics, although they use alternative metrics and scales.

Now before I begin further, I must explain the counterargument of the vast swaths of heathen illiterates that you'll no doubt hear. Such vermin purport the blasphemous notion that these metrics be used to advance the decreasing of writing complexity in order to broaden its appeal and accessibility to readers. Some even claim that the best pieces of writing are those that possess the lowest complexity scores, and that extremely high scores denote the worst writing possible. These naysayers will utter anything (within their complexity capacity) in an attempt to bring you down to dwell in the wallows of sub-12 scores of Gunning Fog, but do not be swayed - they are the Despoiling Mist that lower your armor class only so that they may possess the required To-Hit to suck the potential for literary greatness from your very soul. Treat them as you would the the evolutionists - tread lightly, and do not be swayed by their lies.

Now that you know of the lies spouted by those filled with jealous wordlust for the writing skills they will never possibly hope to attain, you are ready to cleanse your mind of the tainted and preconceived notions of literary grace, and embrace the hard, quantified measures of greatness made possible only by numerical complexity metrics.

Both the Flesch-Kincaid and Gunning-Fog indices were introduced around 1950, and of the two, Flesch-Kincaid is probably more widely-known and used, being a United States government standard used for many official documents. Flesch-Kincaid, more formally known as the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test, is calculated thus:

206.835 - 1.015 * (total words/total sentences) - 84.6 * (total syllables/total words)

The formula yields a score approximately between 0-100, although, as can be seen from this formula, it is possible for extreme cases to generate scores outside of this range. Higher scores indicate increasing ease of reading, and so obviously writers should obviously aim for the lowest score possible, to avoid even the remotest possibility that
those catachrestic readers (hah, the most ironical of ironies!) will comprehend your words enough to ravage them with gross misinterpretations derived from their pathetically simple minds. From our trusted knowledgebank sources at Wikipedia, we learn that many American 5th graders are able to understand text in the range of 90-100, while 9th and 10th grade high school students are able to read proficiently in the 60-70 range. Not surprisingly, such trivial publications as Reader's Digest and the magazine of Time consistently register scores of 65 and 52 on average, respectively, so it should be no wonder that they are forced to publish a "Letters to the Editor" section with each subsequent issue in order to rectify the gross inaccuracies and misreadings that their audience is confused by. The Harvard Law Review begins to approach respectability with a Flesch-Kincaid readability score in the lower 30s, and it should be noted that they have no need for such "Readers' Letters" nonsense to address the trivial questions inherent of the common rabble.

A slightly simpler, yet harder to calculate system, is known as the Gunning Fog Index. It measures complexity in a similar way to Flesch-Kincaid, using words and syllables and sentences, but introduces an entity known as the "complex word" - a word that contains three or more syllables. Rather than a syllables per word measurement, Gunning Fog introduces a complex word per word, or complex word percentage measurement, to gauge the use of complex words over 1-syllable or 2-syllable words that are easily accessible to uneducated riffraff, and the entire proletariat and lesser bourgeoisie in general. The Gunning Fog Index is calculated thus:

0.4 * ( (total words/total sentences) - 100 * (total complex words/total words) )

The score generated is on a scale of -39.6 to infinity, although realistic values are said to align approximately with the grade level of education required to comprehend the text. For example, a text with a Gunning Fog index of 12 is said to require the education of an American 12th grade student, or high school senior, to comprehend. It should be noted that the Wikipedia article recommends that a "short passage" of 100 words should be taken and analyzed, rather than an entire passage, and that this is indeed what many so-called websites which specialize in the calculation of Gunning Fog indices do. This is grossly incorrect logic, made for big wimps and lesser pussies who are afraid of counting complex words, since this completely fails to give an accurate assessment of the piece in its entirety. One also wonders at the weakness of the article editors who were such pathetic excuses for Wikipedians as to compromise the sacred accuracy of such time-honed metrics out of sheer fear of counting complex words in any sizable length of text. In the immortal words of D.L. Lew, the mantra of word complexity metrics is "Go big or go home." It is cardinal sin to half-ass an article that can be read by the masses, and it is a greater sin still to devise such a compromised metric that can actually be calculated by the weaker-willed.

Fortunately, the age of technology enables us to calculate such tedious counts with great efficiency, even if it is the wholesome work of the Gods. Before you begin your doubts, remember the focus and ultimate goal of the writing complexity metric - to pursue ever greater abstracted levels of language, and ultimately transcend to a state of literary greatness as can only be imagined by a negatively infinite Flesch-Kincaid score or a positively infinite Gunning Fog. The following resources are the automated prayer machines of the commoner's religion - they enable us to forgo the most prosaic of our sacred tasks, and race towards our greater holy eradication of the heathen illiterate with God's Speed.

The four raw statistics needed to compute either the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test or Gunning Fog Index are:

Total Words: This can be accomplished by simply opening your text in a Microsoft Word document, and using the Tools->Word Count tool to derive the number of words.
Total Syllables: While this is not a standard feature of Microsoft's Word Count, there are alternative methods to count the number of syllables. One of the best is http://www.libo.co.uk Simply paste your entire text into the Input Box, set the Syllable parameter to "Count", and select "Examine Text", and it will output the number of total syllables.
Total Complex Words: Another item not included in Microsoft's Word Count, an accurate counter of complex words is much rarer. There is a complex word counter located at: http://www.panix.com/~dhf/fog.html - simply paste the text into the textbox, and click "Analyze".
Total Sentences: Sentences remains the last frontier of complexity count automation that remains, well, unautomated. I have not yet discovered an accurate count of sentences, and so the method of choice remains a manual count, using Microsoft Word's Edit->Find tool to systematically search and count through each period, question mark, and exclamation mark.

These should ideally be tabulated in an Excel spreadsheet, whereupon formulas can be quickly set up according to the prescribed formulas for Flesch-Kincaid and Gunning Fog.

A few benchmarks, for your personal comparison:
Book I: Boulversement (very first piece added to the Tejas Adoxography archive):
Flesch-Kincaid: 73.020
Gunning Fog: 10.767

Hot Fuss: Physics Girl and Ipanema Kill a Whale, and Have a Talk About It (lowest rated piece by Flesch-Kincaid)
Flesch-Kincaid: 79.490
Gunning Fog: 10.206

My essay is a fish. (final high school piece)
Flesch-Kincaid: 38.853
Gunning Fog: 21.682

Self-monstrosity Displaced: Dracula, Unwanted Liberator of Societal Repression (first college piece)
Flesch-Kincaid: 25.412
Gunning Fog: 24.550

Progressivism as, and as a Catalyst of, Liberalist Trends in Accomplishing Both Liberal and Conservative End (highest rated piece by both Flesch-Kincaid and Gunning Fog)
Flesch-Kincaid: 13.942
Gunning-Fog: 28.199

Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, and Writing Complexity Metrics for the Heathen Illiterate (this piece)
Flesch-Kincaid: 47.263
Gunning-Fog: 17.931

Reflections on my high school education in the field of Mathematics

2007-03-08T14:45:00.000-08:00

Note: this article makes references to two distinct types of students, known as “techies” and “fuzzies”. It’s an important distinction, because the two realms of students experience quite different courses and course requirements and in general have quite different priorities with regards to education. In a quick definition, a “techie” is a student who is pursuing or plans to pursue an education in engineering or math or ‘hard sciences’ like physics, chemistry, or biology. A “fuzzy”, in contrast, is a student who is pursuing an education in the arts or ‘social sciences’, and are so named because of the “fuzzy” and ambiguous nature of their studies, in contrast to the distinct definitions and black and whiteness often encountered in “techie” fields of study.

In part 2 of this series, we’re discussing high school mathematics. Unlike my previous piece on foreign language, here’s a subject that’s near and dear to my mind – I was heavily invested into math throughout high school and even middle school, and the subject is a major part of engineering majors in general.

I’ve decided I’m going to begin each of these articles with perhaps the most illuminating question of all: why is this subject important? Yes, this is a college blog, and I’ll still be primarily writing a retrospective on my experience in high school with the hindsight of my experience so far in college, and give advice on what students should do. But in explaining that retrospective, the context of my thoughts are very specific and exclusive – despite my attempts to be as objective and comprehensive as possible, my commentary ultimately describes my situation, and stems from observations and evidence that I’ve experienced only. The best way to find your own answer, and find meaning in what I write for yourself, isn’t in all the specifics that I provide, but in viewing them through the lens of this question: what is the significance of this subject for me?

So, why is math important? For engineers and students pursuing hard sciences (or math itself), this question is easy – it’s at the core and arguably the root of their very profession. Math on its own is the most basic level of logic, and the purest – math is black and white, and everything it states and does is fact, and quantifiable. For this reason, it is the building block towards understanding the physical world around us – it is only through math that sciences could ever grow out of a mere set of observations and become serious, quantifiable, and meaningful ways to understand the universe we live in. Understanding mathematics is essential not only to understanding current science, but it’s also essential to broadening of realm of future science as well.

For that alone, there are numerous importances to understanding science, and therefore math, but we’ll cover that later in the science piece. Outside of science, however, math is simply logic. It’s not through philosophy or the rhetoric of argument that we learn logic – logic in its most pure form, before it’s tainted by perspective and language, is represented in math. It’s through mathematics that we learn the concepts of equality, inequality, representation (variables), quantification (number values themselves), and relationship (matrices & systems of equations). At higher levels we learn reciprocal actions (inverses), and the link between sums and rates (calculus), among many other things. Math is the fundamental logic, and at the end of the day, all the philosophical and rhetorical logic (not to mention scientific logic) taught in the universities, and the logic we employ in everyday life are simply abstractions and distortions of the fundamental logic represented by math.

Pragmatically, what does that mean? Understanding math at a fundamental level certainly helped me excel in understanding almost every other aspect I ever studied. But what I’m talking about here is understanding math – simply learning it, memorizing sine and cosine values or mastering formulaic methods for computing integrals doesn’t really do anything. I would argue, for example, that learning how to calculate derivatives using the old, archaic limit h->0 [(f(x+h) – f(x)) / h] method is far more important than ever learning the power rule shortcut for derivatives – though you’ll learn and use the limit method for all of a week and then never look back, and the power rule is the applicable one that scientists and engineers and mathematicians will use in all applicable instances, it is the former that actually outlines the basis behind and definition of derivation, while the latter is simply a tool used to compute and solve. It’s a moot point for ‘techies’ like me, as both lessons – the fundamental concept and the pragmatic tool – are equally important in our line of study and work. But for every ‘fuzzy’ student out there who is wondering what exactly is the point behind all this math, here is the answer: mathematics is a representation of logic at its most basic level, and an understanding of logic through math (even subconsciously, perhaps) goes a long way in making sense out of anything in any field. As noted in the example above, sure, not all math is relevant if you’re in a field that doesn’t use it. Some math is for the sake of math, or for the sake of science only (where it gets abstracted from logic, like all other subjects), but there are important logic concepts within mathematics that everyone should learn, and I’ll point these out here.

A little context, as always, about my educational background:

I’ve attended public schools in P-12 all my life, except for P, and so in part fortunately and in part unfortunately, I never learned mathematics through the new and alternative educational methods that are sometimes used in private schools and seemed to be ushered in some time after I finished my elementary school education (I remember sometime in the elementary school, when my younger sister asked me for help on homework, and I couldn’t understand a bit of the multiplication they were teaching because it was some completely bizarre and non-traditional alternative arithmetic lesson). In any case, I never went through that, and somehow (perhaps just from this one incident) I came away forever thinking that the next several years behind me had always learned the fundamentals of arithmetic some different way. Well if it is, I’m sorry to say I can’t comment at all on how my early education could have been affected or how you readers are affected by some alternative educational scheme. If it isn’t, then ignore this entire paragraph.

I was always a pretty good mathematics student, and I say this in the context of my above commentary on fundamentalism and pragmatism – I learned how to use all the tools and which ones to apply to which problems very well, as did most people, but beyond achieving the right output I always picked up the actual concept fairly quickly, something that, from observation over my P-12 years, not all students do even if they achieve the right grades and otherwise “do” the work right. I had algebra in the 7^th grade, and re-did algebra in the 8^th (as there wasn’t anything left), so while I entered into high school at the same level as everyone else taking geometry, I probably had a bit more refinement and experience dealing with that kind of math. Overall, my pre-college math education looked like this:

7^th grade: Algebra (independent study)
8^th grade: Algebra (same material as 7^th)
9^th grade: Geometry
10th grade: Algebra II/Pre-Trigonometry
11^th grade: Trigonometry/Pre-Calculus
12^th grade: AP Calculus AB, AP Statistics, AP Calculus BC (independent study)

I ended up scoring very highly on AP and SAT mathematics tests, and ended up at UC Berkeley under an engineering major. So far in college I’ve completed one semester of Multi-variable Calculus (3^rd semester calculus, after AB and BC) and am currently in the middle of Linear Algebra & Differential Equations.

You should thus take my context from the standpoint of a “techie”-centric student (although I have a lot of fuzzy roots, which I’ll explain when I get to the ‘social’ sciences), who went through high school on the more advanced math track, and never really struggled too much with the subject. I’ll admit that I lack any experience in the realm of students who started high school doing Algebra and took Geometry their second year, and also those who went with a 3-years-and-out approach towards math classes, although I’ll attempt to take the perspective of “what if” my education ended with Trigonometry or even Algebra II.

Perhaps it’s best to discuss mathematics with a walkthrough, starting with middle school education. The unique thing about mathematics is that it’s a strict sequence – each course is a prerequisite for the subsequent one, and once you’re on a certain track, mobility into the advanced courses is nearly impossible (which isn’t the case for English, science, or social science) – if you started out your freshman year doing Algebra, there’s not much chance to be able to take Calculus in your senior year. For that reason, your mathematics education gets decided all the way back in middle school, when you decide (or perhaps get tossed into) either pre-Algebra or Algebra as an 8^th grader.

The advice I want to give is this: every student should take Algebra as an 8^th grader, and skip straight ahead to Geometry in the 9^th grade (without any “I’m doubting myself maybe I should retake Algebra in high school?” questions), because being an entire year behind in math is a very big step back that is very hard to “make up” if you decide you want or need to be a more advanced student later, and moreover because I have very strong opinions on students taking Calculus by their senior year. However, it’s advice that I’m very reluctant to push, knowing that not every student can handle that pace (which is why this track is the “advanced” one and the standard math track starts with 8^th grade Pre-Algebra and 9^th grade Algebra) – perhaps I want to push it very badly because math to me is so relevant and all-important, and from my observations of an admittedly very-biased sample of friends, all the students I knew were completely capable of learning on this advanced track, including those that started out with 9^th grade Algebra after having taken Algebra in the 8^th grade.

The almost surefire advice is that those students who have already taken Algebra in the 8^th grade shouldn’t doubt themselves by retaking it in the 9^th. Algebra was always the big and momentous subject in middle school (maybe my perspective is exaggerated because it seemed even bigger in 7^th grade), but in the context of high school math, algebra is actually a fairly shallow subject – just variables, equations, arithmetic properties, and maybe an intro to coordinate systems, right? It’s not a core part of Geometry, and the month at the beginning of Algebra II spent reviewing over basic Algebra more or less covers and refreshes everything you learn in Algebra. I validate this speculation with my own experience (perhaps not very convincing) and observations from nearly ever 9^th grade Algebra student that the year spent in review was a waste of time (much more convincing, although I should caution against the bias of my observation samples).

As for students who have only pre-Algebra, or those 7^th graders who aren’t sure if they can handle Algebra in the 8^th grade, the answer is a lot muddier. Again, the advice I want to give is to just go for it, but in reality not every student is prepared enough to take on algebra and grasp the concept of variables at 8^th grade (although many who don’t can be, if they tried), and there’s no way for students who enter high school having only pre-Algebra to magically jump a level into Geometry. Students in this situation are essentially stuck with 9^th grade algebra, but they’ll have a choice to either stay along the basic mathematics track or work hard enough to move up a level.

Move up a level? Yes, you can; admittedly, the mathematics education track isn’t as locked in as I made it seem before. If you’re on the standard math track but want to move up a level so you can take Calculus by senior year for example, the concurrent enrollment programs offered by many community colleges is an alternative. Concurrent enrollment is a program offered by community colleges (In the Daly City area, City College of San Francisco (CCSF), Skyline College, and College of San Mateo (CSM) are probably the largest) that allow high school students to enroll into college classes and earn not only college credits but high school credits as well. Usually, high school students sign up to take a class at the community college over the summer break, and more rarely during the actual school year (with night or weekend classes). The classes are free for all high school students, but you’ll need to speak to your high school counselor and get permission to enroll into classes (you should also ask your counselor how the class would apply to high school credits).

So for students who want to move up a level, concurrent enrollment programs allow you to take Geometry during the summer after freshmen year, for example, and move straight into Algebra II for your sophomore year, assuming that you’ve already talked to your counselor and/or teacher and they’ve approved that taking the college course can fulfill your requirements for high school.

There are drawbacks, however. The first is that you’ll have to put in a lot more work – your whole summer spent going to school again, for example. It shouldn’t be a deterrent; it just means you’ll have to actually dedicate your time and effort to doing well, just as if it was any other class. The second is that, being a college class, concurrent enrollment is generally more rigorous than a typical high school class. By no means is it beyond the grasp of high school students, but it requires need more effort than a typical high school class would. Third, and perhaps the most important, is the time constraints – you would normally take a mathematics course spaced out over the entire school year – 10 months from August to June. For concurrent enrollment courses, all of that material is crammed into a 2-3 month semester – you’ll end up doing the same amount of work (1/3 of the time, but classes may go on for 3 hours instead of 1, for example), but it’ll be at a highly accelerated pace. A summer course in math is like an extended cram session – you may memorize everything and get the grade on the test at the end, but how well everything actually sticks is another matter. Depending on the kind of student you are, you may or may not learn as well as you can with a full-year course, repeatedly working on the material day-in-and-day-out; generally everyone can grasp the fundamental concepts equally and those stick, but students who just tend to memorize things well can hold onto the pragmatic tools they learn from short summer courses better. Ultimately, however, in my opinion (not in my validated commentary), a student who takes a summer of concurrent enrollment along with four years of high school math comes out better prepared and knowing more than a student who only takes four years of high school math and ends up a year behind. It should also be said that if you’re dedicated and willing enough to go to school during the summer to advance a level, you’re probably a student who would be capable of starting 8^th grade out in Algebra and starting 9^th grade out in Geometry.

With that aside, the only question for concurrent enrollment is whether or not a particular student is willing to put in the effort, and if he or she actually needs it. Thus begins a walkthrough of my perspective through my high school and early college mathematics experience, to hopefully reveal enough foresight for each of you to make your own decision.

Geometry

I started out my high school education with 9^th grade Geometry. It was a nice small, 20-student class, which I believe is a standardized maximum for freshmen math in California public schools. Although the majority of this is probably obvious, having 20 students means the individual questions of students can be addressed much more comprehensively, and on the flipside, although many won’t like me saying this, the low student capacity allows for classes to be much more tuned to the level of student ability – classes with more advanced students spend a lot less time bogged down by a handful of students who can’t keep up with the rest of the class, and classes with slower students aren’t hopelessly drowned out by the pace of more advanced students.

At the time, and for a long while afterwards, I detested Geometry. As I’m sure it was for many, Algebra and variables and solving for them was an absolute delight. Going into geometry, with all of its coordinates and shapes and 360 degrees (what kind of unit system is base-360??) (context: possibly I’m not a ‘visual learner’), and the doldrums of memorizing theorems and postulates and proving this and that when things were, “Just look at the thing! It’s quite obvious without a theorem, wouldn’t you agree?”, was quite an exercise in tedium and an absolute bore.

That said, in reflection geometry introduced a number of fundamental pragmatic tools – beside the basic ones like SohCahToa and various useful theorems for angles and shapes, geometry was the first in-depth application of algebra in tangible terms. You wouldn’t solve for some abstract variable, but for an angle, an edge of a shape, a perimeter. Applications in geometry is still very much a pragmatic tool – it doesn’t quite reach the level of abstraction you’ll find with vectors and n-space (fully explored in college-level linear algebra), but it’s the first stepping stone that allows you to grasp the same basic concepts in more familiar shapes and 2-dimensional-space.

The real beauty of geometry, however, and the most valuable lesson I took away, was the raw usage of logic to handle and solve problems. While, like any other field of mathematics, applying the tools to problems was part of the class, the largest part of Geometry was rather substantiating the validity of those tools. For every algebra-application “X and Y are similar shapes; find X’s dimensions given …” problem, there were two “X and Y have given properties; prove their similarity” problems. Rather than computation or tool application, Geometry was an exercise in logical analysis and conclusion.

What does Geometry mean now, as a second-semester engineering freshman? Pretty much as soon as I finished Geometry, I dropped just about every pragmatic tool save SohCahToa – throughout a science education filled with Physics, Chemistry, and Computer Science and a math education with Algebra II, Trigonometry, Calculus, and Linear Algebra, I rarely ever needed to calculate the angles of the vertices of a regular polygon, and only rarely did I ever have to do things like show congruency between sides. There were a few things, like the introduction of the Sine, Cosine, and Tangent trigonometric functions, as well as the properties of parallel and perpendicular lines, that stuck and proved to be repeatedly useful, but the entire pragmatic side of Geometry consisted simply of math-for-the-sake-of-math or math-for-the-sake-of-science tools. The extensive (and mandatory) use of logic, however, was what stuck most and prevailed as a foundation for future learning – everything that was validly useful was derived from a fundamental logical base, and understanding that logical base proved instrumental in not only knowing where any tool could be validly applied, but whether it was valid at all. As most of my later teachers would tell you, I refuted everything I was taught until I could substantiate it through my own train of logic, a refusal of the common ‘memorize, plug, and chug’ learning that lets many students pass classes but leaves them grasping for any understanding whatsoever. Although I probably hadn’t realized this point at the end of 9^th grade, the necessity for a foundation of logic for everything was went on to define my approach to education. Arguably, it was the biggest reason I ended up learning and understanding as much as I did in all my subsequent education.

Algebra II, Trigonometry

The next two years of math education are a bit of a blur, although perhaps it’s because it feels so long ago (a scant three years!). For the most part, Algebra II and Trigonometry/Pre-calculus taught a smattering of useful (and some not-so-useful) mathematical tools. The most important concept here was the coordinate system – Algebra II first explores this and uses it to represent equations in a graphical form. Trigonometry delves into this deeper, with more non-linear equations, and towards the end of the year (in my class at least), the presentation of alternative coordinate systems, such as polar and parametric coordinates. Understanding coordinate systems is the stepping stone to the more general topic of vectors, and within the domain of high school has applications such as dealing with vectors quantities in Physics. While it’s not necessary, understanding coordinate systems is an extremely beneficial supplement when learning vector quantities (such as any kind of Force) in Physics, a topic that surprisingly many struggle with (even at the college level, in my first semester Physics class) - as a tie-in with science, I started both Algebra II and Physics in my sophomore year and found the former to be extremely useful in understanding the latter.

For the most part, students who don’t live and die by mathematics usually don’t find the somewhat random smattering of Algebra II or Trigonometry very interesting or relevant, and it’s around this stage that many of the 3-years-and-out students elect not to go for their 4^th year of mathematics. The very next level of math, however, is what (in my experience) puts it all together in a single, shockingly relevant and simplistic system of mathematics.

Calculus

Out of any math I’ve ever taken, Calculus (taken in my senior year) proved to be the most revolutionary and eye-opening concept since Algebra. Up to this point, the majority of mathematics had simply been for the sake of math and science – learning math in order to do more higher-level math, or applying it to solve science (mostly Physics) problems. While I personally loved it and excelled, for any non-techie student, there admittedly wasn’t much appeal or immediate relevance in any of it. Calculus changes all this, with the introduction of the derivative, and later on the integral, two concepts that, for myself at least, offered a shockingly new way to think about nearly everything, from making sense of statistical data (distribution curves in particular), to understanding economic and business concepts (trend indicators, for example), to gaining an even deeper introspect into the workings of everyday physical phenomena – in short, for pretty much anything with quantifiable values, Calculus redefined it in an entirely new and elegant way. To give an example, before Calculus and the introduction of rates (derivatives) and sums (integrals), one might very well understand any individual quantity such as velocity, displacement, or time, and even understand their relations to each other (D=RT). One might also take the quantities of height, gravitational acceleration, and time and understand their relation in a state of free-fall (t = √(2h/g) ). Calculus offers a mathematical system that combines the awkward old system that used to define a new set of quantities and formulas for each different state or situation. Through Calculus, students come to learn that constant velocity and the free-fall situations mentioned above are actually just specialized forms of one single, universal equation that defines all the possible relationships between distance, velocity, acceleration, jerks, and so on, which in itself is a specialized form of the single equation which defines a general sum and any of its rates.

I’m not sure if I could quite convey this without explaining derivatives and integrals themselves, and I’m not sure anyone reading this could actually understand without understanding derivatives and integrals themselves. Suffice to say, Calculus unlocks a truly unique way to look at almost anything, specifically to look at relationships as not awkwardly defined in their own unique terms, but to boil down the definition of anything and everything into a single elegant system of simple rates and sums of other quantities. And understanding and viewing the world through the scope of this system both simplifies almost everything you already know, and makes many of the toughest new concepts easily graspable in familiar terms that you already know, by allowing you to define everything in terms of something else.

So now that all of you soon-to-be seniors know that Calculus is the most important and most applicable math ever (so don’t even consider chickening out and not taking math your senior year!), the biggest question many students face is to take AB or BC? In my senior year of high school, I did both, although not exactly in the conventional classroom setting. At my school we only offered Calculus AB as a class, although our very dedicated Calculus teacher held a weekly afterschool BC session for a few of us who essentially independent-studied the Calculus BC material. Thus, not having ever taken BC in a classroom setting over a full year (or semester), I’m not sure if my commentary is truly reflective of what most students will face, although in independent study we still covered all of the BC material and I was able to manage a 5 (out of 5) score on the BC test, for what it’s worth.

First of all, what is the difference between Calculus AB and BC? College calculus starts with two semesters, and high-school AB courses roughly cover the first semester of material while the BC courses cover both the first and second semester of material. For the most part, AB covers the basic concept of the derivative and integral, along with the various methods to compute the most common ones. In my BC experience (keeping in mind that I never took a BC course in the classroom setting), the BC material simply consisted of more advanced ways to solve trickier derivatives and integrals – methods like ‘integration by parts’ that, while needed to solve otherwise impossible integrals, contributed little if anything to the fundamental concepts of the derivate and integral, or any other relevant concept for that matter. Pragmatically, however, the BC material was a slightly different matter. Many of the integration methods would prove to be useful (and necessary) later on in Math. In the first math class I took in college, Multivariable Calculus (3^rd semester Calculus), complicated integrals that required knowledge of BC methods were ubiquitous (although unnecessary with regard to the actual fundamental concepts), and so the pragmatic skills learned in BC would be useful. In all subsequent math (that I’ve experienced so far – Linear Algebra & Differential Equations in my second-semester of Math), and certainly all science and any “real life” application, BC material is essentially worthless. While as a math major, abstract integrals like the integral of xcos^2(x) may be worth knowing how to calculate, the fact is that for any other field, integrals like those virtually never show up in real-world problems; outside of mathematics (and outside of 2^nd and 3^rd semester Calculus, even), I haven’t ever encountered a situation where I needed anything beyond the skills I learned in Calculus AB. Even in the rarest of rare situations where such an integral might arise, the far more efficient and common sense method is to simply use a calculator (what AB students do) or at worst look up the integral in a table (something even my post-Calculus graduate student instructors (GSIs) admit is the sensible thing to do). Methods are good to learn when they’re relevant to understanding fundamental concepts, or when situations that require them are bound to appear frequently enough to make them practical. Outside of perhaps a math major, the methods learned in BC don’t apply to any situation that anyone would encounter, either as a student or in any working profession.

That doesn’t answer the whole question, however. Useless as I think second-semester Calculus BC is, the fact is that it’s still required curriculum for many students. So the question, “should I take Calculus AB or BC in college” must be weighed against this. Fuzzy students obviously have even less use for BC material than techies, and my suggestion is that they check the requirements for the major at the college(s) they are planning to apply to – if second-semester Calculus isn’t a requirement (or part of some larger breadth requirement), don’t take it. If second-semester Calculus is required, however, I might suggest taking it in high school, depending on how confident you are about being able to pass the test. Since it’s a subject that really is irrelevant to your later fields of study, it’s much easier to pass the high school Calculus BC than it is to endure/waste an entire semester in college on Calculus, and it won’t really matter if you didn’t learn as much as you could have through an actual college course.

For techie students, my advice remains the same for similar reasons. Second-semester Calculus is almost an assured requirement, so there’s no way around it. As mentioned before, the tradeoff between a high-school BC course and a college course is that by passing the BC test you get to skip past what is otherwise a useless second-semester Calculus course in college, but will likely end up learning and retaining less (of somewhat useless material) than you would have in the college course. Although your mileage may vary, another consideration is the strict requirements that some colleges require for Calculus BC credit. At the UC Berkeley College of Engineering (which covers all engineering majors), for example, a perfect 5 out of 5 score is required to earn credit and skip second-semester Calculus – while many students from our small independent study group achieved this (note this is a biased sampling), a 5 is by no means automatic or easy, and students who struggle with Calculus may very well end up not receiving any credit for BC anyway and have a rushed/compromised AB education. Check with your college and intended major about the kind of requirements needed to receive credit for the BC test, and compare this against your proficiency as a student (if the requirement is a perfect 5, I might ask, “have I consistently been an A-student in math?”).

How will your BC-proficiency play out in post-second-semester-Calculus math? I’ve currently completed a single semester of third-semester Calculus (multivariable) and am halfway through another semester of Linear Algebra and Differential Equations, so my experience is fairly limited, but so far my BC education has either been monumental or trivial, depending on your priorities (I tend to view it as trivial). Having taken Calculus BC as a weekly independent study-like class, my retention of the material wasn’t nearly what it could have been with a full-on AP class, much less a dedicated semester-long college course, and this partially resulted in myself having pragmatic issues finishing out problems when I arrived at third semester Calculus (Multivariable). I had no hindrances in learning and comprehending all the fundamental concepts of multi-dimensional integrals and vector derivatives, however, as I had learned all that I needed from Calculus AB, and simply applied that to n-dimensional space. The result was satisfaction in having learned and understood all the fundamental concepts, coupled with a somewhat less-than-satisfactory grade because I wasn’t able to compute out all the problems, partially because of a lack of second-semester Calculus (BC) skills. Keep in mind that my situation is perhaps much more exaggerated than the typical high school student – I learned Calculus through a one hour-a-week afterschool class, while students who take actual BC courses get to have a full 5-days-a-week class, and thus will probably be far more prepared and retain far more material than I ever did.

Statistics

Usually the alternative senior-year math course for those who elect not to take Calculus, statistics is unique not only because it’s usually the only math course that doesn’t follow in the prerequisite chain of Algebra-Geometry-Algebra II-Trigonometry-Calculus (meaning you can jump into it anytime instead of following a strict order), but also because it’s a very self-contained subject – unlike other math, where you learn abstract math techniques and wait for a chance to apply them elsewhere in say science, statistics teaches you both the techniques and the myriad of statistical applications. I took the Statistics AP course concurrently with Calculus in my senior year, so my educational experience with statistics is likely more comprehensive than the non-AP Statistics classes that many schools offer or also offer.

Most students will get a taste of statistics in their Trigonometry class – when I took this in junior year we covered some basic concepts like probability, permutations, expected values, and normal distributions. Having taken Trigonometry my junior year, I think I was much more familiar with many of the initial concepts in Statistics, and this helped a lot to dive right in to the core subject matter – since I was already familiar with and understood the basic idea, I didn’t need to spend as much time figuring out what certain things meant (like the idea behind an expected value or how to interpret distributions), and could dive right in to learning how to use and apply them, which is what statistics is all about. Especially since statistics doesn’t really make use of any other mathematical concepts beyond basic algebra (exponents and logarithms are very important however), anyone who’s taken or is taking Algebra II should be able to handle statistics just fine (I think concurrent Algebra II might be a requirement as well – I’m not too familiar with this anymore).

I thoroughly enjoyed Statistics, and I might even venture to say that Statistics is one of the most appealing Maths for students who don’t like Math. The reason is that, unlike other subjects that are heavily weighted in abstractness that start with techniques and create problems for them, leaving a lot of students disinterested and wondering “When am I ever going to use this?”, statistics begins with the problems themselves and then finds techniques that allow students to solve them. While in any other math class a student might learn the Pythagorean Theorem and now have Sally mark a point and walk x meters down the river and measure an angle θ so she can find how wide the river is, this kind of example lacks immediate relevancy – people don’t encountering measuring the width of rivers in everyday life, and even if they do, they’d just take a measure straight across the river using a tape measure or some other device, not some cockamamie Pythagorean Theorem method! In statistics, we begin with very real-life problems – error probabilities and allowances with manufacturing facilities, or distributions for characteristics like a population’s height, and only then do we break out and learn about the tools like standard deviation and binomial distributions to solve them. I think I’m starting to talk too much from an educator’s perspective instead of a student’s, so in a nutshell, Statistics is very interesting, relevant, and great fun, even if you’re someone who’s been scared off by all other kinds of math in the past.

How is statistics important? Well, unlike the other mathematics courses, statistics isn’t really on the prerequisite list for anything, which is a shame because it’s probably the mathematical subject with the broadest and most immediate appeal and applicability to students studying in any field. Take a moment to think about the activities and tasks you’ll perform in your intended field of study, both academically and professionally. If you’re doing any kind of engineering or hard science, it goes without saying that all of data you collect from tests and experiments need statistical analysis to interpret them into any kind of useful information, and any product one might design or build would need to fit within certain specification and error parameters. If you’re studying business or economics, everything from market indicators to company finances and economic trends compose a major if not integral part of running any business, and the accuracy and significance of any of that information relies heavily not only on good statistical analysis, but good statistical practice in obtaining that data in the first place. The same goes for any of the ‘social sciences’ – anthropology or sociology or psychology deal very much with individuals and more “fuzzy” observations and notes, but at the end of the day, valid and meaningful information and conclusions can only be derived from collecting large amounts of such fuzzy data and interpreting them statistically. Even for the everyday person, regardless of college education or profession, statistics are encountered on a day-to-day basis, with information received from media outlets (television, newspapers, government or research reports) or when using statistical information to make decisions and policies. Thought it may not be readily apparent at first glance, statistics very much run the world, and while someone else may end up as the bean counter, it’s very important to know whether that person is counting the beans correctly and what all those beans mean in the first place.

I would recommend statistics almost universally to any student. In my experience at least, the curriculum isn’t nearly as rigorous as most of the other math courses, and it’s surprisingly approachable even by those who don’t have particularly strong math backgrounds. And at the end of the day, it’s a subject that almost anyone will find useful, both from fundamental and pragmatic standpoints.

In Summary

So I’ve just hit the 12^th page as I’m typing this out in Word, and I figure I better write a nice conclusion to sum this all up, particularly for all of you who haven’t the time to sift through the entire preceding portion of this article.

Math, from the simplest of arithmetic, to algebra and calculus and branching off into statistics, is the first, most fundamental step to understanding the world. Admittedly, a lot of high school mathematics gets muddled along with burdensome pragmatic methods which aren’t always useful and relevant, something necessitated by the generalized and mixed situation of high school education – high school mathematics is very much geared towards techies that will enter into math or scientific or engineering fields, and while it has very important lessons for fuzzies as well, much of this comes buried under things that many students won’t care about.

From both a techie and fuzzy standpoint, the most important thing I’ve learned throughout high school and now in retrospect is that mathematics is perhaps the most important step in furthering the capability to understand almost every other subject taught in school. This is very apparent when students first learn Algebra or Calculus, which first introduce the broad, overarching, important-to-everyone concepts, but a bit less so in all of the in-between classes that simply build on and abstract those ideas. For that reason it’s a good idea for any student to advance their math education as far as possible, particularly for the sake of reaching the Calculus plateau in senior year. The in-between classes, while still important from a pragmatic standpoint, don’t matter as much, and for that reason I wouldn’t get discouraged if they seemed boring or even if I was struggling a bit.

The biggest lesson that I’ve admittedly stumbled upon after the past two months of writing this (it’s been a busy on-and-off piece) is a general one, however, that really applies to all education, at every level. Education teaches a lot of things, but most all of it can be broken down into fundamental concepts and pragmatic applications. In every field of study there are fundamental concepts, and these are usually relevant to everyone, no matter what they’re studying or doing in their lives. Coincidentally, it’s these concepts that are most often the easiest part of a subject – there isn’t much work required, just critical thought in order to grasp the subject. In most fields, after these fundamental concepts come many pragmatic exercises and applications (although these in themselves may be prerequisites to understanding the next level of fundamental concept). For the most part, these aren’t relevant unless they’re a part of your study or working field, or cover an application that has broad and/or everyday significance. At the end of the day, it’s the pragmatic applications that make a career (partly why education gets more specialized and application-intensive once you start college), and the fundamental concepts that enrich a person and make them into better learners. Rather than grades or test scores, these are the most successful priorities one can possibly have throughout their high-school education.

Genetics, Monstrosity, and the Pursuit of Perfection

2006-12-08T21:05:00.000-08:00

Overview: DNA in Modern Society

The growth of the corporate police state has always been a recurring theme throughout the genre of science fiction. While most of these sci-fi depictions of futuristic dystopias are rooted in paranoia and imaginations run rampant from simple initial premises, with the advancement of technology in the modern age many of the scenarios depicted in previous generations of science fiction seem more and more like a plausible reality. Chief among these is the mapping of the human genome, and the vast wealth of information discovered in DNA.

DNA, or Deoxyribonucleic acid contains the genetic information which guides the development and growth of almost all living organisms. In humans, DNA has been found to contain information determining a number of traits, including physical attributes such as eye or hair color, as well as physiological information such as an individual’s susceptibility to various diseases. Since the DNA structure of every individual is different, DNA also serves as a unique “genetic fingerprint” that has been developed into one of the most reliable methods of identification, something which has seen applications in forensic investigations.

The advent of DNA technology has made many positive contributions to society. In the field of forensics, DNA evidence is now regularly used to identify and convict criminals, as well as exonerate wrongfully convicted ones. Genetic testing for susceptibility to diseases has enabled individuals to make better health choices; for example, those genetically at risk for diabetes can plan their dietary lifestyles accordingly to avoid developing the disease. Widespread genetic screening has also become common – currently in all hospitals in the United States newborn infants are genetically tested for the genetic disorder phenylketonuria, a disorder which can lead to brain damage if left undetected, but which can be effectively treated if the disorder is known.

Despite the numerous positive contributions of DNA technology, the general populace has also come to identify a “dark side” of the technology. Many contemporary commentators raise policy concerns over the rapid expansion of its use and the prevalence of DNA information, emphasizing the need for safeguards to protect privacy and restrict wanton access to individual’s genetic information. Fiction writers and alarmists, meanwhile, imagine the current state of DNA technology taken to their most extreme potential extents. Whether the worlds they paint are actually plausible in the end do not matter – they provoke thoughts of and are representations themselves of the actual fears and fantasies of the technology, painting various perverted pictures of a potential future reality; thus the fears presented in fiction closely echo and feed the actual fears of the public. In most of these visions, an uncontrollable human construct, enabled by technology, is the monster which has taken over and perverts the traditional human way of life.

Analyzing Monstrosity through Fiction: Unadulterated Fears

One of the most prominent examples of this fatalistic future world-view is presented in the 1997 film Gattaca. In this film, the same life-saving genetic screening technology which today helps prevent disease has been taken to its extreme form: genetic screening not only marks potential disease, nor simply defines physiological traits, but now defines the entirety of the individual itself – its qualities, its temperament, its potential in life. As an infant, the main protagonist, Ethan Hawke’s character Vincent, is genetically screened and is found to have nearsightedness, a congenital heart defect, and a life expectancy of 30.2 years, dooming him to a life among the genetically inferior “invalid” caste. In contrast, the upper caste of “valids” is a pure product of rampant DNA technology and the pursuit of perfection - gene therapy, used today to help treat disorders, is presented in extreme form by the proliferation of ‘designer babies’, or babies with selectable traits based on gene manipulation.

The advancement of DNA technology, like all technology, is an effort on the part of humans as a race to extend their capabilities. While the natural capabilities of humans are locked in place by innate physiology, it is through technology that humans are able to extend their capabilities, in an effort to become more productive, to do work with greater ease or at a faster rate, to achieve more comprehensive thought and understanding, to strive toward bettering and ultimately perfecting human society and the human race. The world in Gattaca is formed precisely out of that pursuit for perfection, using DNA technology as a means to achieve it. When Vincent, his parents’ first child, is conceived and born naturally (without the aid of modern genetic technology), he is a human filled with genetic imperfection, determined to develop disease and die young. This repulsed and horrified his parents, so much so that Vincent’s father refused to name his son after him. “Like most other parents then, they wanted their next child to be conceived in what has become the natural way” – for their second child, Anton, Vincent’s parents embraced genetic manipulation as a means to create a better, or even perfect child – a “son worthy of my (Vincent’s) father’s name.”

By pursuing perfection so relentlessly however, Vincent’s parents and the human society of Gattaca ultimately pervert the concept of humanity. While humans have always strived for success and perfection, in the society of Gattaca the ideals of success and perfection have been confined to a single parameter: the quality of the individual’s genetic profile. The understanding of DNA allows for it to be comprehended as such a measure of quality; the technology developed to manipulate it allows for society to pursue that quality to the greatest possible extent. The human race’s traditional strive to improve and perfect itself is subsequently replaced with the singular quest to perfect the human genome, and as a result allows DNA to replace the human itself. In the world of Gattaca, DNA rather than humanity takes a dominant role. It, more than either parent, “creates” the human, wholly determines physiological makeup and the course of an individual’s life, and defines humans into a distinct upper-caste and sub-human lower caste. Unlike the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of humans with free thought and will, the DNA-defined human is static, with genetic code hard-wired permanently in his body, defining a person’s traits and behaviors, much like a programmed computer. With genetic code being static, there is no advancement beyond the defined potential of abilities, no latitude in the individual’s pre-determined course of life, and no social mobility between castes. Confined to only what DNA mandates them to be, humans to an extent have no free will, and rather than dynamic, free-thinking individuals with intangible and unique individual traits, become simple constructs defined and created by various combinations of genetic code. In the world of Gattaca, the pursuit of perfection through genetics redefines the perfection of humanity and the human individual to be like a machine or computer program – a simple amalgamation of interchangeable genetic code and an assembly of lesser, modulated parts, rather than any independent, individual entity represented by a sentient human mind.

While this society presented in Gattaca is monstrous, the actual monster which creates this world is the DNA technology itself. DNA technology enables society to fixate and depend on the information provided by genetic code, and exploit the power to manipulate DNA. The information about an individual which can be gleamed from genetic code itself provides the basis for society to base itself upon genetics, prejudging individuals based on DNA, defining the class division between the genetically perfect (“valids”) and the genetically imperfect (“invalids”), and creating the perverted, genetics-dependent society that is presented.

The ability to manipulate DNA enables society to fully exploit this knowledge. Knowing which genes are “best”, society cannot resist the opportunity to actively breed “perfect” humans (that is, humans with perfect genetic code), further reinforcing the divide between the genetic haves and have-nots. Lastly, the abundantly available access to individual DNA information, by compliance or force, enables this society to be enforced – it has become societal norm and even expectation for individuals to submit to DNA tests at nearly every junction, from DNA used by employers to assess a potential job candidate or by men and women to assess a potential mate, to regular urine sample tests during the workday, to blood sample verification just to gain admittance into a building. With this information readily available, the information gleamed from DNA and the uses of technology can be readily applied.

This runaway imagination of what DNA technology may become, and may transform society into, isn’t only limited to the realm of fiction. In an article in the technology and science journal The New Atlantis, Christine Rosen describes the ultimate effect of a universal DNA database, and the mass collection of genetic information, “We may come to know too much about ourselves to truly live in freedom; and our public and private institutions may know so much about us that equal treatment and personal liberty may become impossible.” While Rosen may be a bit hyperbolic and alarmist, she echoes many of the same fears realized in Gattaca in discussing a very real development today: the buildup of a universal DNA database, containing the genetic code of every person.

The creation of a universal DNA database is perhaps one of the largest developments in the power of DNA since its development as an identification tool in crime investigations. A universal DNA database would eventually keep genetic records of every individual in the world, and presently several large national or state databases are maintained and developed for the purposes of identification in forensics investigations. To Christine Rosen, such a database, providing knowledge of every individual’s genetic information, would enable the society presented in Gattaca: by accessing and examining the DNA which may foretell our lives, “we may come to know too much about ourselves to truly live in freedom”, and governments and businesses accessing this same DNA information about individuals “may know so much about us that equal treatment and personal liberty may become impossible.” In the present day, these concerns may sound exaggerated – the dystopian world of Gattaca seems far removed from what society could possibly transform into in the near future. The underlying fears that Gattaca is based on, however, are still very real in present-day society. A very real contemporary example of the ramifications of predeterminism encountered in Gattaca is the modern diagnosis of Huntington’s disease – a debilitating genetic disorder leading to inevitable death, presently without any known cure. Though learning of such a disease would not change any outcome, the bliss of ignorance affords a certain liberty, whereas knowledge strips away personal freedom by making death by the disease inevitable – fate is no longer within the hands of the individual, but rather has already been determined by one’s genetic code.

Policing the Borders of the Possible: Changes in the Genetics-based Society

DNA technology is a monster which “polices the borders of the possible”. The potential of the information and uses contained within genetic code are enormous. With the power to predict genetic diseases, identify people, and the possible potential to cure disease, grow organs, predict outcomes of human life, clone humans, create humans outright, and modify or enhance the human species, are all capabilities of DNA which have the power to greatly benefit society. DNA technology can revolutionize the medical world and save lives, all but eliminate crime, streamline economy, and evolve the human species as a whole – the exact utopia which humans strive to pursue through technology. At the same time, each of those same powers can lead society to complete ruin, plunging the human world into the various dystopias imagined in fiction – a world which strives for perfection so hard that it loses or sacrifices its humanity, and enslaves individuals to the ‘greater society’ governed by technology and the pursuit of perfection.

More generally, the great hope and fear of DNA technology is the dual potential of technology, and even Power itself, to create both gods and slaves: in well-meaning hands, it can empower society and allow it to achieve great things, but in corrupt or ignorant hands the abuse of such power instead threatens to enslave the population under it. Thus, the fear of DNA technology is actually comprised of two elements: the scary capabilities of the technology itself, and fear of its misuse or misemployment by the potentially corrupt or ignorant intentions of those who wield it, both fears that feed into the vision of a totalitarian police state enforced by technology and stem from a single, common insecurity: the loss of the individual.

The darker capabilities of DNA technology – or what they may grow into – are both frightful and dominating. DNA technology enables genetic tests which can reveal information about a person’s entire life, enables genetic manipulation to selectively breed new children, but most importantly and more horrendously, provides for a society to be built based upon the capabilities of this technology. Like the advent of money, and the capitalist system, or motorized transports, or computers, and then the internet, DNA technology represents much more than simply the tool that it is; DNA technology, like all technology, represents a way of life, a revolutionized one from one without it, and a change pervaded at all levels. With the development and implementation of such technologies, it soon becomes a normal and expected mode of life. Today society expects individuals to do business and be productive occupations in order to attain wealth, to travel with the speed of motorized transport, and proficiently use all the resources provided by computers and the internet; those who refuse to live a lifestyle involving the attainment of wealth to support oneself (derisively called “lazy”) or use computers as a resource (derisively called “technophobic” or “archaic”), indeed anyone who refuses to utilize the technology provided for them, are rejected from society for not meeting the societal standard, whether that be defined in terms of productivity or knowledge or morality or sociability. Genetics, conceivably could become just such a revolutionary technology, allowing for enhancement in humans that is no longer merely an enhancement, but a new raised standard, defined in productivity, knowledge, morality, or sociability quantified by one’s genetic profile, that leaves behind those that are unwilling to embrace such enhancements of genetic technology.

At one level, the personal level, DNA technology can, and already has, changed the personal lifestyles of individuals. In Gattaca, the discovery of Vincent’s fragility through his genetic testing as a newborn caused the rest of his childhood to become overly sheltered and protected, with his parents treating him as if “every skinned knee and runny nose was treated as a fatal threat.” In real-life, similar situations are also created in the diagnosis of terminal genetic diseases. Like the diagnosis of Huntington’s disease mentioned before, such a disease is incurable; a positive diagnosis may mean that the patient is put into a hospitable in palliative care, to have his inevitably deteriorating health monitored and cared for, rather than freely living the life he would have. Like the society in Gattaca, DNA technology threatens to dominate the personal life of individuals. Telling a presently healthy individual that his DNA reveals that his probability of developing heart disease is 90% is quite a shock, not only because of the severity of the disease but because it can be foretold with such certainty: a 90% certainty, ascertained by undeniable, unchangeable, factual DNA evidence. That individual now leads a life exceedingly aware of his condition, which likely influences him to be exceedingly aware of his dietary habits, his exercise regimen, his weight, his blood tests – a life completely centered around his 90% certain diagnosis of life-threatening heart disease, and a life spent pursuing the other 10% chance that he will avoid it. In discussing ethical issues of the diagnosis of terminal disease, medical student Michael Hemphill poses the very same issue: “… a positive test may leave a person at age 20 faced with radical choices concerning marriage, progeny, vocation – without any vestige of the former hope of remaining one of the unaffected.” Though it is, if anything, a psychological confinement, the knowledge afforded by DNA as a predictor of life binds the individual to it – where before there were, in the individual’s mind, endless possibilities to life, the certainty of DNA traps the individual to the course it predicts as the only possible outcome; the predeterminism of DNA is presented in the stead of the freedom to determine one’s own destiny.

At a greater level, DNA technology threatens to drastically change society. Society, essentially, is nothing more than a set of expectations for the conduct of its denizens. Thus, a change in society is still a change in the lifestyle of the individual – not one imposed by the individual’s own reaction to technology, but one imposed on individuals by society’s reaction.

Like the society seen in Gattaca, DNA technology is not simply a tool – the human genome becomes the sole basis of society and governs the way of life. Fictional depictions like the movie Gattaca and contemporary discussions and examples provide glimpses of what people fear will happen:

In Gattaca, the same ultra-precaution that Vincent’s parents take with his health transcends into society’s precaution too – the school that Vincent initially attends expels him after he falls on the ground, telling his parents that “the insurance won’t cover it” given Vincent’s fragile health. The same concern is echoed in Christine Rosen’s concerns about individual’s genetic information being availably known, where she tells the hypothetical story of a woman who had herself genetically tested for breast cancer:

“The company that performed the test assured her that her sample would remain anonymous, the results known only to her, although the disclaimer she signed offered few specifics about these privacy protections. Four years later, she is denied insurance coverage. Why? The insurance company purchased the private lab’s DNA database, ostensibly for research purposes, and cross-referenced it with its own. They red-flagged the names of people who had been tested for breast cancer.”

In both cases, all of the traditional reasoning and evidence is thrown out – there are no prior medical history or present-day symptoms considered. The decisions to deny the woman insurance coverage and expel Vincent because of his medical liability are based solely on the risks that the DNA predicts are probable.

In the worlds of Gattaca and Minority Report, a futuristic film about using precognition to detect “pre-crime”, or crimes before they occur, genetic, and more broadly biometric, testing has enabled criminal investigations to evolve into mass dragnets, substituting the traditional merit of suspicion based on evidence with a broad suspicion that every member of a community is guilty until they are cleared, reversing the traditional judicial ideal that suspects are “innocent until proven guilty.” In Gattaca, Vincent is inexplicably linked to a murder, with the only evidence for his suspicion being a stray piece of genetic information, which itself offers at best a dubious link to the crime. Nonetheless, his identity is hunted down relentlessly – in and out of work each day he passes through entry gates that take blood samples from his thumb, has urine samples taken at work on a regular basis, and faces roadblocks checking blood samples and cheek swabs, all searching to find a match for his genetic information. Similarly, in Minority Report, Tom Cruise’s fugitive character John Anderton is hunted down as he travels through a futuristic world filled with ubiquitous optical scanners, which, among other things scan for a match to Anderton’s identity. In either case, both characters must go to extra-ordinary extremes to avoid detection: Anderton must remove and transplant in a new set of eyes to avoid the optical scanners which search for him; Vincent adopts the entire genetic identity of another person, using another’s blood, urine, hair, skin, and heartbeat to substitute for his own. Arguably, however, the pursuits of Vincent and John Anderton are justifiable and reasonable applications of available technology. Both characters are linked, however tenuously and erroneously, to crimes, and the relentlessness of their pursuit isn’t as far removed from standard criminal pursuits with solid evidence in the present as it is a reflection of the type of pursuit the capabilities of biometric technology allow. Though both stories focus on the journeys of their respective protagonists, the real distortion of the futuristic societies portrayed is not that the main characters, who have at least some modicum of suspicion, are pursued, but that every other member of society is simultaneously being screened and searched and pursued in the exact same manner, as if they, too, bore the same incriminating evidence and level of suspicion. The evocations of the police state are readily apparent – law enforcement not only subjects criminals, and those with behavioral situations or in circumstances similar to criminals, to its control, but now also subjects the everyday citizen, whose freedom is no longer a guaranteed and protected right, but one that must be constantly earned through a biometric validation that the individual does not possess the identity of a wanted criminal. As much as the worlds of Gattaca and Minority Report reflect the totalitarian police state, they more importantly reflect a police state dominated by and based upon genetics. In the new world, the innocent are no longer defined as those having no evidence linking them to the crime, and similarly suspicion is no longer defined by the evidence that proves it. The new society is based on genetics, and its infallibility as an identifier, making the definition of guilt and innocence clear and simple: the innocent are simply those whose genetic profiles do not match the suspect being sought; the suspected are those who have not yet validated their genetic identity as innocent; and the guilty are those whose genetic profiles validate as a match.

Such a prospect is in fact far from fiction, and not so far removed from the present. In 1987, Alec Jeffries, a British geneticist, conducted the first use of DNA profiling in a criminal investigation, two unsolved rape cases in Narborough, Leicestershire in central England. Much like the 1997 Gattaca, and a decade before the film was produced, Jeffries conducted a dragnet-type screen of all the males in the areas surrounding the crime scene, over 4,000 samples in total, attempting to find a genetic match to the semen evidence found on the victim. The investigative mindset was much the same as the one that would be presented in fictionalized worlds to come – individuals would clear their name by testing out negative for a match, and the guilty would be found eventually by testing out positive or being found out from a group of suspects narrowed down to those who had not yet proven their innocence through genetics. Since then, the history of criminal investigations has seen the same scene continually repeated, and with increasing frequency. In recent years, the growth of and push for a universal database, with genetic profiles of every person in a population would allow for complete universal dragnets. As far off into the future as most science fiction plots are portrayed, the reality, or at least the beginnings, of genetic drag-netting and a world with innocence and guilt judged on genetic identity, is already here.

The information that one’s genetic profile holds about one’s future life also paves the way for a society that judges its individuals solely on what his or her genetics predict. Gattaca presents the complete embodiment of this mindset – DNA serves as the only measure of quality in any individual. As a child, Vincent was told to give up on his hopes of becoming an astronaut by his parents who, looking at his genes, had already resigned him to heart failure and an early death – “You have to be realistic.” Interviewing for jobs, Vincent soon discovers that none of his other credentials or skills or education meant anything to employers – “My real résumé was in my cells.” Returning later, this time a “borrowed ladder” with the superior genetic profile of another man, Vincent now finds acceptance into the elite society which had previously shunned him because of his lowly genetics. Whereas before he was rejected everywhere he applied, no matter what was listed on his resume, in applying to the Gattaca space agency he is accepted as soon as a urine sample verifies that he is a genetic “valid” – genetically qualified enough to work at the Gattaca space agency – without any need for a resume or interview or any other qualifications.

More than an expectation of large, faceless entities like corporations and the government, however, the genetic qualification is also an expectation of society that pervades even into the community level, the level of individual relationships between people. Vincent’s father, Antonio, changes his mind about naming his first-born son after himself, after he discovers the horrendous condition of Vincent’s genetic profile, and the kind of person it would mean he would grow into. He reserves his name for his second-born son, who this time is genetically engineered to be the child Antonio envisioned his son to be. Later on, a woman appears at a DNA profiling lab, with the saliva of a man she just kissed fresh on her lips, attempting to evaluate his qualities as a potential mate based upon the genetic profiling and analysis the lab returns. In both of these cases, the quality of the individual is not judged by anything else but their genetic profile. At birth, Vincent’s father already assumes his first son to be a failure, and his second to be a success the moment their genetic profiles are analyzed. The woman at the profiling lab obviously wishes to judge the potential of her mate not by any of his manifested characteristics in real life, but by what his genetic profile says that he really is.

Beyond DNA developing into a measuring stick for individual quality is the ramifications this has on the way society treats individuals. At all societal, communal, and personal levels, the people of Gattaca have come to equate quality of genes with the quality of a person, and have subsequently come to expect quality genes in order for a person to be acceptable to society. Those who don’t have the genes to qualify are deemed unacceptable, or “invalid”, and are outcasted into an inferior workforce and an inferior social community. This is similar to modern times, where societal standards exist that make requirements for acceptability into that society: there are standards of morality, standards of productivity, standards of sociability, and those who don’t meet those standards are similarly shunned and outcasted. The difference lies in the definition of such “standards” – where as in today’s society, such standards exist in a general sense, but are ambiguous and most importantly open to interpretation, genetic profiling allows the society portrayed in Gattaca to make clear definitions of its standards of acceptability, and individuals who do and do not meet them. In Vincent’s words, “Today discrimination is a science.”

The result is a distinct class system, between the have and have-nots, not unlike caste systems which exist today and have existed ever since the advent of human societies. The distinction between classes is different from modern, Western, and capitalist societies, however, and is similar to older, more brutal distinctions because the distinguishing feature of future society is one’s own DNA profile, as intrinsic and innate and static as marks such as race or nobility ever were. Though such divisions occurred in modern society, the redeeming aspect was societal mobility – no matter how lowly the individual or what the parameter of success, it remained within possibility and hope that success and acceptance was attainable. Even if one were not born into the wealthy class, the openness of a largely capitalist and free-market economy allowed almost anyone with enough dedication, business-saviness, or sheer luck to improve their own financial status until they could be accepted into the society of wealth. The openness of democratic government allowed anyone with enough dedication and charisma to attain influential power. With morality and sociability ascribed to the actions and temperament of any individual, it was simply a matter of willingness on the individual’s part to be morally and socially accepted, or even redeemed, into society. Alternatively, the ambiguity of such societal standards always made it possible that society itself may change and evolve its standards. The key difference of a futuristic, DNA-dominated society is that its divisions are neither dynamic nor permeable: the science and factuality behind DNA allows it to be a clear and resolute dividing line in society’s standard of acceptability, and the innate and static nature of DNA means that there is nothing any individual can do to change their acceptability.

The Monstrous Utopia: Inherent Monstrosity in Lack of Appropriate Societal Context

Each of these changes that DNA technology brings forth may in fact have perfect merit - in principle. Already, and conceivably to an even greater extent in the future, genetics play a major role in the risk of a large number of diseases – a valid informative tool that insurance companies can use to assess risk. Similarly in forensics, although the link between DNA evidence at the scene and the crime itself may be tenuous, the pursuit of someone who appears likely to have been at the scene and may have had involvement is quite within the realm of police interests, and the use of DNA identification, even in mass dragnets or with a universal database, is an extremely accurate method of linking a person with such genetic evidence. Even the prospect of evaluating genetic profiles to assess qualities of an individual is sound – if technology were to develop to the point where truly accurate evaluations could be made on skill levels or predispositions, these findings could be just as valid as test scores or resume credentials to assess an individual. The many potential pitfalls aside, the genetics based society, in principle, seems perfectly logical and fair. Why then, is such technology never perceived in such positive light?

As monstrous as the world may seem to a modern-day audience, the society in Gattaca is obviously a functioning one – the world is orderly and operations hum along, driven by an elite workforce which has been perfected by engineered genetics. The monstrosity perceived in Gattaca’s perfect-society-in-principle is a personal one, and one brought about partially by viewing society from a present-day rather than futuristic context. Vincent is the personification of the modern-day individual in such a society, a genetically inferior individual compared to humans engineered to perfection, attempting to make his place and prove his capability despite what his genetics mandate, and thus modern audiences identify themselves in the same role. The monstrous injustice to Vincent is the denial of his right to opportunity – because DNA is static, he is viewed as a pre-programmed, unchangeable machine limited to his intrinsic DNA. However valid this assessment may be, and however accurately society can evaluate Vincent through genetics, neither Vincent nor modern audiences are able to accept this because they frame the views of such a society into contemporary Western society, where free-market capitalism, democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and equal opportunity are sacred and long-held tenets that have long allowed for the potential of societal mobility and boundless capability. Gattacan society strips these rights away, and assigns a static, quantified societal status and finite capability based on DNA. Though the principle of Gattacan society may be sound, with regard to realistic human limits and creating the most efficient and harmonious society, it is one that contemporary audiences refuse to accept because it, by definition of a society based solely on genetics, necessarily removes rights which are considered sacred and unalienable.

The Sum of All Fears: Genetics-based Totalitarian Society

Principle aside, each of the changes possibly brought on by DNA technology have ramifications that evoke various degrees of concern, alarm, and fear in and of themselves. In the medical world the risk-assessment-based insurance companies may be transformed or disappear entirely in the face of definite DNA evidence. In forensics, the development of genetic evidence may develop into a reliance on genetic evidence and dragnet profiling, depicted in Gattaca and voiced by many, a reliance that may ultimately weaken forensic science and leave it open for exploit. Taken on their own, these changes affect only one aspect of life, and the consequences are relatively trivial. Taken together however, the individual changes brought on by DNA technology accumulate to result in a fundamentally changed society that places the human genome as a governing body – the basis for a totalitarian government, if you will – that governs the lifestyle of individuals and removes the autonomy to govern themselves.

In a future world where lives are lived under a foretold and unvarying course, under a society that operates under the expectation that individuals can only follow their foretold course, a world where work and social prospects are evaluated by genetic profile rather than any actual achievement or merit, where the distinction between guilt and innocence must be continually validated by a test of DNA, each of these changes from our present society is frightening in its own way. True monstrosity isn’t realized, however, until all of these changes in society are brought together. Alone, the changes brought forth by DNA technology are only individual fears – the fear of discovering some debilitating, incurable disease; the fear of being turned down for health insurance; the fear of being unqualified for work for want of genetics; the fear of being inexplicably linked to crime solely because of a tie to genetic evidence – but taken together those changes define a new society that is wholly dependent on genetics as the basis under which it operates. Where society today is dynamic and diverse, the genetics-based society of the future appears singular and rigid. In modern society the goals of individuals and ideals of “perfection” or “success” are highly variable, and though current society is still a very scientific and logic-based one, conclusions can be founded upon different paths of logic that are subject to open interpretations. In contrast, in the futuristic genetics-based society there is only one ideal – the highest quality genetic profile – and success is similarly defined as possessing such genes. This mindset is entrenched with the full confidence and belief of society’s denizens; except for our rebellious protagonists, no one ever recognizes the possibility that genetics and pre-crime may not be as absolute and definitive as thought. In Gattaca, Vincent’s genetic profile is assumed to be definitive of his life. Before he ever has a chance to prove his failure and validate his DNA’s prediction, his aspirations are rejected by his family throughout childhood; he is already rejected by his father at birth; and already rejected by employers before any job interview – all decisions operating under the singular logic that the only possibility for success is the potential that one’s genes allow for; Gore Vidal’s character of Director Josef of the Gattaca space agency, emblematic of the film’s gene-based culture, remarks, “No one exceeds their potential.” The future world is perhaps the scientific and logic-based society of today taken to an extreme, with facts and logic pointing to one single conclusion which is taken, almost fanatically, as an absolute truth. Similarly, in the pre-crime society presented in Minority Report, the belief in precognition’s ability to prophesize future crimes is absolute – perpetrators are never allowed for the possibility that their free will may still allow them to change or stop their actions.

In this way, the genetics-based society very much resembles the totalitarian police state. Unlike the free and open society which is composed of and defined by its citizens, the totalitarian police state is a governing body of society removed from its actual constituents, who rather than composing society are now merely living under it. The genetics society is not the traditional totalitarian police state, however – unlike Stalin’s Soviet Union, the society based on DNA technology is not one borne out of fear or force, but is rather one that the denizens willingly impose upon themselves. Like Hitler’s Nazi Germany was built upon a fervent hyper-nationalism, the genetics society is built upon an infallible and almost religious confidence in the truth offered by DNA and its factual, scientific backing.

What makes the threat of a genetics-based society especially potent, however, is that while most all of the old fanaticsm and prejudice based on race, religion, nationality were simple ignorance and delusions of self-superiority – and in time could be rationalized away and resolved – DNA promises to be the first form of discrimination with a logical and scientific basis. Genes, unlike skin color or nationality or religion, actually do tell something about the human individual, and distinguishing “desirable” and “undesirable” characteristics of individuals is certainly conceivable. If the severe yet ultimately fallacious prejudices of anti-semitism allowed Hitler to commit atrocious crimes against humanities, or centuries of baseless racism allowed African slaves in the Americas to be subjugated as second-class citizens, even after legal emancipation, then the threat of genetic discrimination to impose its will on members of society is not only entirely plausible, but made all the more dangerous because its basis cannot be refuted as mere ignorance or injustice.

Thus, the advancements in DNA technology which allow genetic profiles to become informative and quantifiable measures of individuals enables the creation of a society which fixates and even defines itself on these traits, something made more palatable by the fact that genetic quantification is substantiated by reason and science, rather than base human prejudice. Subsequently this genetic society, if taken far enough, has the potential to become a totalitarian society dominated by such genetic quantifications. As shown in Gattaca, such a society creates a dividing line between the societally acceptable and unacceptable that is imposed on the population – in this case the division was between the genetically superior “valids” and the genetically inferior “invalid” castes. The “invalid” Vincent is unfit for society, and thus he is entirely excluded from having aspirations, from having social relationships with those genetically superior, from joining the respectable workforce. In totalitarian societies, however, where standards are not simple societal expectations but societal impositions, discrimination runs both ways. In Hitler’s totalitarian Third Reich, the genetic discrimination of Gattaca took the form of hyper-racism, resulting in vast numbers of minority and “undesireable” groups like the Jewish, the Gypsies, and the disabled or mutilated to not only be excluded from everyday acceptable society, but excluded from being human beings as well. At the same time, however, the same standards that excluded the unacceptable were imposed on those members of accepted society who had to uphold the superiority and righteousness of the ‘master Aryan race’. Max Schmeling, a celebrated – and societally acceptable – German boxer during the pre-WWII era, fell into disgrace with Hitler after he lost his boxing championship, and thus a claim of pride and supremacy, to an “unacceptable” – the African-American Jack Johnson. Though they were acceptable by the societal standard, this acceptability needed to be constantly validated; in the case of Nazi Germany, members of society needed to constantly assert a superiority over inferior races. In the DNA-based society of Gattaca, the genetically gifted face the same imposition of the genetic standard. Jude Law’s character, Jerome Eugene Morrow, whose identity Vince assumes, was an elite member of society possessing a nearly perfect genetic profile. After an accident leaves his legs paralyzed, Jerome loses his one asset in life – the ability to use his superior genetics to perform as a top athlete, and privately falls from grace into a life of alcohol and prostitutes. With the capability to utilize his genetics lost, at the end of the film the broken-down Jerome commits suicide, no longer acceptable to the societal standard and thus no longer belonging in society.

Ultimately, the monstrosity of such a totalitarian genetic society is the same as any society governed by totalitarianism – the imposed societal standards strip away much of the freedom of the individual. The monstrosity of the genetic totalitarian society is compounded by the inherent monstrosity of DNA technology – even beyond the societal standards imposed by ideal genetics, DNA technology carries ramifications at the personal level: the complex issues of genetic predeterminism – knowing the future, and having that future set in stone; or human-definition issues that break individuals down to combinations of genetic code and make them more machines or programs than living, sentient organisms with independent thought and being. DNA technology polices the border of the possible – at the personal level, developing and understanding this technology would give rise to inevitable questions of purpose, whenever the prospect of predeterminism and the definition of being are encountered; at the societal level, it enables the conception of a totalitarian society based on genetics that threatens to enslave the human race under the very technology it uses. In both cases, free will and the autonomy of the individual is stripped away, either by a scientific predeterminism or an overbearing totalitarian society. Thus, DNA technology is a forbidden monster because its rampant development threatens to bring about the downfall of humanity. At the same time, it is for those very same reasons that the technology excites fascination – the human race, constantly striving to improve itself in the pursuit of perfection, can not help but indulge in optimism, and wonder what utopia technology may bring.

Self-monstrosity Displaced: Dracula, Unwanted Liberator of Societal Repression

2006-11-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

True to his in-story metamorphic powers, Bram Stoker’s title character of Count Dracula in Dracula takes on a multi-faceted and difficult to define form. In both action and existence he embodies traits that are normally perceived as mutually exclusive, and often directly conflict. Upon entering into London and Western society, Dracula’s confusing and paradoxical existence transforms the world around him, too, into a paradox, coming into direct contradiction with many of the societal conventions that empower the male-dominant hierarchy and form the foundations of 19^th century Victorian society. This contradiction ultimately threatens to overthrow the society in place, making Dracula a dangerous monster whose eradication is relentlessly pursued.

Dracula’s monstrosity comes primarily in two forms: the monster that defies easy categorization, and the monster that comes from outside to dwell within. Dracula himself is an amalgation of a myriad of traits – he is at once both male and female, homo- and heterosexual, a student of modern knowledge and a master of ancient magical powers. Arriving in London, he appears to introduce this confusion of contradictory traits into society, although it becomes apparent that these traits are not the artificial contaminants of a foreigner, but elements already innate and underlying in Western society.

Dracula represents two primary challenges to society: the sexual liberation and confusion of gender roles, and the powerlessness of logic in the face of belief.

The most immediate monstrosity of Dracula is his predation of women. Not only does he attack women, a cause for concern in itself, but his attacks morph previously virtuous, ideal, and subservient Victorian women such as Lucy Westenra (“My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them?” (Stoker 60)) into wild and openly sexual women driven by lust (“Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!”) (Stoker 146). The vampirification of women reveals a vivaciously sexual side of the female gender wholly unlike the reserved and virtuous woman that society idolizes. This dichotomy of both virtue and sexuality fused into the body of a single woman is unacceptable and monstrous to society, which perceives clear separations and mutual exclusivity between the upstanding and virtuous women of society and the degraded and sexually promiscuous whores and prostitutes – the upstanding woman is not permitted to be sexual, and the whore is not permitted to be acceptable.

The unleashing of female sexuality also reveals something equally abhorrable – the susceptibility of males to female sexuality. As much as the men are repulsed by this unbound female sexuality, they are simultaneously drawn to it. When Lucy Westenra reincarnates as a vampire after her death, the sexuality she exudes upon meeting the men is irresistible: “Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!” Lucy begs, and while recognizing the evil, the response by John Seward admits the vulnerability of man: “There was something diabolically sweet in her tones … which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms.” (Stoker 188) Just as open sexuality corrupts the virtue of woman, it also corrupts the virtue of man by temptation – the men are drawn to the sexually voracious woman, even though giving in to such an indulgence flies against the reason and self-restraint that Victorian society is based upon, and would mean almost certain death for the men. The irresistibility of temptation also demonstrates another potential monstrosity of this newfound female sexuality: powerless to restrain themselves, the men willingly submit to the sexually dominant female, reversing the traditional hierarchy and making males a subservient class to the sexualized woman.

All of the fears and apparent monstrosities of female sexuality, however, may not actually stem from Dracula. Lucy, before being vampirized, had shown hints of the same sexual wantonness, describing the three marriage proposals she had received in a single day, “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all the trouble?” (Stoker 60). Although it is Dracula’s attacks which unleash this sexuality in its entirety, Lucy’s would-be saviors continually strive to separate this sexually voracious vampire from their idea of the “true” Lucy, refusing the notion that the sexuality may have been inherently part of her. John Seward refers to vampire-Lucy’s body, “… there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy’s shape without her soul” (Stoker 190), displacing their fear of the sexuality inherent in women into a foreign trait which is artificially inseminated into them by monstrous means.

Dracula also alternates traditional gender roles throughout his interactions with other characters. For example, while in his first encounters with Jonathan Harker, the Count gives an outward impression of masculinity with his “strong… aquiline” (Stoker 23) face and “grip of steel” (Stoker 17), as well as his title as a patriarch of a grand castle and family name. In practice we see Dracula filling a much more traditionally feminine role, personally upkeeping his own castle, making Jonathan’s bed, and preparing his dinner, much like a housewife or female house servant would.

In erotic symbolism, Dracula’s vampiric nature also blends male and female anatomy and sexual roles. Dracula’s sharp, piercing fangs of the vampire, penetrating through the skin of his female victims, provides a vivid metaphor for the male penis, while his attacks on women are a form of predatory rape that is the manifestation of the most lustful male aggression. In action, however, Dracula’s vampiric attacks embody traces of female sexuality himself – though his fangs, like the male penis, penetrate the female body, he simultaneously sucks the bodily fluids from his victim, as if a female engaging in oral sex. His interactions with Jonathan also carry sexual overtones – on the night before Jonathan’s supposed departure, Dracula “kisses his hand to me (Jonathan)” and proclaims that “To-night is mine” (Stoker 52), indicating that he plans to feed on Jonathan. This dichotomy of both male and female sexuality fused into a single act represents quite a shock and challenge to the refined society of 19^th century Western Europe: not only is Dracula overtly sexual, nor does he simply expose his female victims to wanton sexual desire - he himself combines both female and male sexuality into a single body, making him a grotesque vessel of overt and predatory sexuality, homosexuality, and hermaphroditism.

In attacking his victims, Dracula also takes on a motherly role – through his vampirism he effectively “gives birth” to new vampires, and by nature has a parental responsibility to all of his converted vampire children. In his attack on Mina, for instance, Dracula takes on this maternal role literally, forcing Mina to suck the blood from his chest, mimicking a mother breastfeeding her child. Like his victims-turned-vampires, this embodiment of a mothering role turns monstrous as the vampires become the anti-mothers: Dracula’s three vampire women devour the smothered baby in an earlier scene in Dracula’s castle; Lucy Westenra as a vampire preys upon the little children of London; and Dracula forcibly feeds Mina his own blood, presenting her not with the life-giving nourishment of breast milk given to human babies, but with a blood lust which slowly breeds Mina into a monster.

Dracula and his converted vampires present a horrific distortion of the typical family structure: filled with sexual desire and wantonness, the female vampires abandon their motherly roles in nurturing children, and worse yet turn to preying upon them. With the mother figure gone, the parental responsibility shifts to the male patriarch. In this parental role, Dracula does nothing to nurture the child either – ironically he “provides for” the household by bringing home a baby for the three vampire women to feast upon. Upon moving to London, he is more preoccupied with preying on other women and spreading his seed, converting them, too, into vampires, and after doing so, such as in the case of Lucy, abandoning his parental responsibilities to them as well, never again giving consideration to Lucy after her death. As a further physical manifestation of this Dracula destroys society by tearing apart family after family of the traditional, socially expected kind, detaining Jonathan Harker and preventing him from returning home to his fiancé; stripping away Lucy Westenra before she can begin her married life with Arthur Holmwood; and corrupting Mina Murray with a potential vampirism, ostensibly removing her relationship to society, with the band of men, and even with her own husband, unless Dracula can be destroyed. These ordinary, cohesive, nurturing family structures and the eloquent well-mannered society are replaced in vampire society by a disturbing and barely recognizable community: one in which each member is savagely predatory, indulges in their own individualistic sexual pursuits to the forfeit of virtue and human life, and abandons all kinship bonds between husband-wife and parent-child, holding nothing sacred.

All the fears which Dracula brings to Western society are in fact, already present within it. As exemplified in pre-vampiric Lucy Westenra’s wish to marry all three of her suitors, females already bear some innate sexuality, albeit one that is mostly repressed. The susceptibility of men to open female sexuality is already a very real occurrence with the openly available sexuality exuded by prostitution. Alternative sexuality – that which does not fit the typical mold of reserved, wed-locked heterosexuality – is, while only privately discussed, a feature that very much exists in Victorian sexual life, as evidenced by public commentary regarding Oscar Wilde’s conviction of homosexual acts in the same time period, “Why does not the Crown prosecute every boy at a public or private school or half the men in the Universities?” (Hyde 170). Each of these – female sexuality, sexual temptation, and alternative sexuality – holds the potential to destroy the traditional family structure and society just as much as Dracula does explicitly.

Dracula’s monstrosity comes from a displacement of these societal problems. Dracula reveals these societal threats to traditional society by confusing clear-cut divisions and roles, and blending the repressed features of society into reality. While female sexuality certainly exists for example in prostitution, prostitutes as outcasts of society can easily be ignored as people who were ineffectual and non-representative of the actual women of society. By unleashing the sexuality in socially accepted women such as Lucy Westenra, Dracula blends together the same sexuality of the disgraced whore with the virtuous woman of refined society and confuses the male perception of the woman: no longer is she easily classifiable as either an upstanding society woman such as Lucy Westenra or a common whore such as the three vampire women, as the one-dimensional female characters in Dracula are perceived. Dracula similarly blends the righteous, impervious man with the sexually vulnerable one. Though the heroes of Dracula are continually extolled for their courage and righteousness in their cause (Mina writes in her journal, “How can women help loving men when they are so earnest, and so true, and so brave!” (Stoker 308)), these same men nearly falter at the sexual whims of Lucy the vampire. By blending together erotic elements from female, male, and homosexual realms, Dracula confuses the very nature of sexuality itself, revealing a form which is far outside the confines of heterosexual, monogamous sex. Though all of these elements which threaten to destroy Victorian society as it is known already exist in society, Dracula brings them into reality by blending sexuality into the virtuous woman, sexual frailty into courageous man, and alternative sexuality into conventional sex, combining the repressed taboo elements which seem mere fantasy into those that are accepted, respected, and very real in society.

Dracula also crosses the boundaries between the scientific world of reasoning that modern Western European society functions by – his operations and powers fit no logical explanation, but are firmly rooted in the world of mysticism and superstition. Though at the outset he seems very much the knowledgeable epitome of the modern man – masterful in the art of languages, a studious reader of books, and a curious student of modern society, Dracula’s true powers are rooted in centuries-old superstition. When he immigrates to London, he carries with him these superstitious powers into a world that, through the scientific upheaval during the Enlightenment Era and Industrial Revolution, has been trained to rationalize everything, and dismiss that which can’t be reasoned out – Van Helsing explains to John Seward, “It is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.” (Stoker 171). This disbelief in the existence of Dracula and his vampiric powers ensures that none of London or modern society is able to stop him.

Dracula’s superstition-based powers represent an evil which the citizens of “modern” science- and logic-based civilization cannot combat. The characters’ attempts to make sense of the bizarre circumstances surrounding Lucy all lead to the wrong conclusions, in constant denial of the fact that such a mythical vampire could exist in their city and be preying upon Lucy: Mina attempts to attribute the wounds and blood on Lucy’s neck to accidentally puncturing her when wrapping a scarf around her; Dr. Seward attempts to find a medical cause, to no avail; and Lucy repeatedly receives blood transfusions, addressing the effects of her mysterious illness but never their causes. Neither ever considers the possibility of a vampire in their midst – to them and the rest of modern society it is scientifically implausible, and thus not a possibility worth considering. With only the powers of logic at their disposal, they leave themselves completely defenseless against the magical powers Dracula. Even after Dr. Van Helsing arrives, his magic-based countermeasures fail because of the same lack of belief in them: Mrs. Westenra, Lucy’s mother, doesn’t recognize the value of the garlic, telling Dr. Van Helsing that she had simply disposed of all “those horrible, strongsmelling flowers” for concern that “the heavy odor would be too much for the dear child in her weak state.” (Stoker 123), allowing Dracula to revisit Lucy. Similarly, upon Lucy’s death, the maid simply steals the crucifix placed upon Lucy to prevent her vampirification, not recognizing any powers of its sanctity, and instead only recognizing the material value of the gold ornament.

Fulfilling Jonathan Harker’s prophetic claim from early on in Dracula’s castle, “And yes, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere “modernity” cannot kill.” (Stoker 40-41), it is only after Dr. Van Helsing, who despite being a man of science keeps an “open mind” to superstition, arrives that the possibility of a vampire is realized and can be properly combated. His array of weaponry consists not of modern or technological tools, but of the same religious ornaments and superstitious enchantments that Dracula’s powers are rooted in. The effectiveness of Van Helsing’s methods seem to defy logic: it does not make sense that garlic or a simple crucifix would repel any creature, or that a vampire could not physically pass through a communion wafer or rest in a place without sacred dirt, nor that staking the heart of a corpse would “release” a body from the undead vampirism. That these methods do prove effective serve to further confuse the logic-based world of the Victorians – not only do the vampires in their existence demonstrate a superstitious power that defies reason, but Van Helsing’s superstitious methods further demonstrate an exclusive power in a realm where logic-based methods have failed.

The untempered reign of superstition poses a direct threat to the logic-based modern civilization. While the powers of reason are firmly founded upon factual basis and built up by logical analysis, the powers of superstition are loosely rooted in ignorance and a lack of education, drawing a contrast between the modern society of Western Europe’s London, and the generally uneducated villagefolk of Eastern Europe initially seen by Jonathan. Despite the worlds being polar opposites, they share similarities: as much as Eastern Europe’s blind belief in superstition puts them in constant fear of Dracula, Western Europe’s adamant dismissal of superstition leaves them susceptible to and equally under the control of Dracula’s powers.

By coming to London, Dracula blends two worlds together: the modern, technological, and logic-based world of Western Europe, and the superstitious, irrational, and “backwards” world epitomized by Eastern Europe. In every way, modern society believed their view of the world to be correct – science had repeatedly disproved many of the baseless suppositions and religious/superstitious theories that had governed old world thought. Dracula defies any plausible logic, yet, his obvious existence refuses dismissal. Thus, he reintroduces elements of the old world into modern society, distorting the boundaries between science and superstition, reality and fiction.

The blending of old world superstition back into the modern world challenges the very roots that modern society is founded upon – knowledge and reason. In facing Dracula, all of reason and technology fail, and society’s continued dedication to and belief in those methods blinds them. The most powerful tool against Dracula’s magical powers is one that modern society with its reasoning has forsaken: religion. As much as Dracula is susceptible to the sacred powers of the communion wafer or the crucifix, the denizens of modern logical society are susceptible to the superstitious powers of Dracula because they are equally godless. The effectiveness of the superstitious powers of Dracula, as well as the superstitious and religious powers employed by Dr. Van Helsing against Dracula, confuses the world that the characters of modern society live in – it is no longer a world purely of clear-cut fact and logical workings, but one which also operates under ambiguous magical elements which cannot be explained.

Despite modern society’s attempts to progress, through scientific advancement, beyond the state of civilization in past centuries, or those in lesser-developed regions such as Eastern Europe, Dracula reveals the need for belief which logic can never replace. Though facts and logic have firm foundations, the conclusions reached by logic are neutral and hopeless. While reason may eliminate such supernatural horrors as mythical monsters, reason also precludes such supernatural concepts as religion. Though the world of superstition contains such evil as vampires, it also allows for salvation, which Lucy, the three vampire women, and Dracula all eventually attain upon death. Despite modern society’s attempts to rationalize out the supernatural, much like Jonathan’s attempts to rationalize with the superstitious villagers on his journey to Castle Dracula, the human need for faith and belief is unsubstitutable – despite disbelief and a strong resolve to reason, all of the characters of modern Western Europe fall prey to Dracula. Dracula, stating “Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine” (Stoker 267), also implies that even if there are those in society educated and resolved to reason enough to be impervious to the powers of superstition, the susceptibility of those in the same community with weaker resolve will always provide a vulnerability through which society can be manipulated and upturned. Although the band of men cling with fairly strong resolve to reason and never come directly to harm from Dracula’s powers, Dracula still attains the blood of all four men through the vulnerability of Lucy Westenra. Though modern society considers itself learned beyond the influences of petty superstition, the ease through which Dracula overtakes vulnerable members of society, or the grip which he already holds over the uneducated of Eastern Europe, demonstrate that because of the human need for belief in some, if not all society, civilization can never truly progress to exist on reason alone.

While the physical events which surround Dracula are readily monstrous in themselves, the characters’ relentless pursuit of the Count’s destruction, or even their quest to excorcise the body of Lucy Westenra stems from a far greater fear. Dracula’s introduction into the Western world, bringing with him the sexuality and superstition so foreign to the sexually reserved, logic-based Victorian society, heavily warps the world by unleashing the repressions of sexuality by propriety, and spiritual belief by logic. This distorted potential society, though rooted in elements already existent in their society, seems completely foreign to denialist Victorians – they thus displace this disgust onto Dracula as the monstrous constructor of this perverse world and the corrupter of theirs, rather than simply as a liberator of their own society’s inner monstrosity.

Chapter 18: Sex (Sparknote for my Evolving Thoughts on Love at Twenty-one years of Age)

2006-06-12T06:57:00.000-07:00

My, my. How a bit of serotonin can change your entire mindset in a heartbeat. That, and finding the love of your life helps, too.

I lived most of my entire life afraid of sex, I think. It was one of the four great taboos that as a kid I mustn't never ever ever do. Drinking, smoking, drugs, and sex. That's what everyone always warned me about, that's what they always taught in schools. To this day, I still haven't done a single one of the four.

It's interesting because, as much as it seems like society has become so casual with regards to those things, all my life I've been 100% adverse to it. My complete disinterest surpasses simply not doing it - I can honestly say that I've never felt a single temptation or slight urge to drink or smoke or take some any sort of drug. So, why's that worked with me, but (seemingly) not with the average American teen?

I think part of it, perhaps the biggest part, stems from being a complete health freak. Not that you'll ever see my visually neurotic in public, but I've always been the kind of guy who'd actually think about cost-benefit in terms of how'd it affect my lifespan. -I'm deathly afraid of death, by the way. Or at least I used to be.- So given that, any of the aforementioned three were out of the question - the thought of losing several years off of my life terrified me far beyond any temptation I would have had, if I were ever to have any at all. Personally, the public education system did a great job hammering in the health effects with fear tactics - it hit right where I was preoccupied with the most, especially I think those late elementary-early middle school years, and as far as I was concerned the first image I ever saw of a cancerous lung was enough to turn me off smoking, and all the related health ills, for life.

Sex, however, was different. Well of course, you'd say - smoking or drinking or drugs may not be a universal cup of tea, but everbody, everbody likes sex. But I'm not sure if that's true. Certainly, I think everyone has an interest in it to some extent, but it's not a priority, or even a conscious "I want it" thought of a lot of people. I think a lot of people, notably the anti-social engineering nerd types, just don't have a huge unbearable temptation to engage in it, at least relative to most others. Yet for some reason, despite falling into that same non-social classification and being so disinterested in all the other big societal ills, I've always found myself immensely interested and tempted by it. And what's held me back? Fear.

Unlike smoking or drinking or drugs, the health detriments of sex aren't so inevitable or catastrophic. If you stayed with a single person, diseases weren't really such a big deal as they were made out to be, and that great white shark of STDs, colloquially known as "babies", had numerous measures like birth control and condoms and all of that great stuff. And, aside from the point a bit, what was ever so wrong with having a baby anyway? A digression I won't get into, but a nice point to ponder in the context of mainstream society's view.

So, I don't think I ever really worried about that side of things, not really. What scared me the most about it was that, while I was still growing up and regarding it as the super-sacred coveted grand act of true love and affection, sex (and all the other activities branched down from it) was becoming casual and rampant, and increasingly so as I moved from middle school to high school. I never minded that people were that way - it was simply a different lifestyle and ideal from who I was. But the part that scared me was how many people seemed to be so... open and casual towards the physical aspects of a relationship, and even more so, how people seemed to change so easily the moment a hot guy or girl, who never cared for them a moment in their life otherwise, came along and decided they wanted them. My greatest fear of sex, and all physical activities, was that it would be casual. That a kiss or a touch or sex would happen, and while it'd mean the world to me, it'd be casual, it'd be just another thing for whoever it was that I'd happen to have fallen for at the moment. And that, since it'd be so casual, she'd have no problem being detached, and that kiss would be just a kiss that happened long ago, not the first but just another in a long series. And I'd be left, putting the weight of the world on it, because your first kiss has to mean something. But does it, when to the other person it means... nothing?

Even more frightening than that, was the prospect that I would become the same way. That after my very first time, if things didn't work out, I'd become disillusioned, and well you've already lost your first kiss virginity, and your making-out virginity, and well since it's happened already it really doesn't matter if it happens again, and again, and again or with who. And a kiss by itself, or sex by itself, wouldn't mean anything, because the one time you thought it did, or it might have, you found out awhile later with some retrospect that it didn't.

For that reason, I always wanted to wait for sex (and most everything else), until I had found the person I knew was going to be the one, and she was ready and we were ready to make that eternity commitment. Because I knew I'd find the person, eventually. And when I did, I never wanted to look at her and tell her I loved her, all the while realizing it wasn't the first time I had said it. But you didn't mean it the first time! No, you did. At the time you say it, you always mean it, you always feel like you could be with the person forever and nothing'd ever go wrong. But the heartbroken soul of any long-lost lover will tell you that it just isn't true. That you'll feel that way now, and feel like it as long as you're together. But when things go wrong, things are over, and you get over her. And you realize that, no, you never really "loved" her in the first place; if you did, you wouldn't be over her.

What's wrong with saying "I love you" more than once? It's true; the moment you say it the second time, you never meant it the first time. But by virtue of not having meant it any time, it's opened up the possibility of another failed relationship. You could feel strongly enough to say it to the person you've currently fallen for, but then again you felt as strongly about the person you fell for before, who turned out to definitely not be the love of your life. No, you can't say it's "different" this time, because you've used the exact same terminology to refer to someone else before. Anything special this time around has to be validated through other aspects - meaning that the simple statement holds no real meaning anymore. It'll never be the same as dating a whole lot of people, but saving the words until the very end, for the person you really knew was it. Then you could say, the words mean something, because it's the only person in your life who you've been able to say them to.

...

That was the logic that used to carry me. For more than a month I've been with the... girl of my dreams. She's ideal in every way, and that part I can honestly say because she's the first girl I've ever met and fallen for who... has no perceptible faults. Even in the past, no matter how madly I had fallen for the person, there was always something, a bit of personality or behavior that I didn't like, that just didn't fit with me. Of course, being infatuated and all, you mask those sorts of things in your deep and blinding attraction, but the fact that it, some incompatibility, exists alone means the person isn't 'perfect', despite your every attempt to use that descriptor. It's not any kind of deal breaker (except when things end badly - then it's the thing you've always hated the most about the person), but it's definitely there.

The reason I've fallen completely head over heels for her? Not because she's pretty and whitty and bright and amazing, or that she's the visible personification of absolute perfection. It's not that she's the ideal woman, although she very well may be, but that she's my ideal woman. As much as I find myself completely attracted to her in every way, including modes and extents that I never imagined before, every time I see her I get the feeling that she's just as attracted and head-over-heels for me, more than I even know. For the past month, she's spent every moment she possibly could with me, something I was, and wanted in return so badly, the first time. She seems to be every bit my companionate love, the one I've been writing about all these years. Do I want her to be the witness to my life? Yes, of course, I've always wanted that, from someone. The thing is, she's the first one I ever felt could actually become that person.

And so perhaps, that's the reason I've been so at ease with all of the physical aspects. I've been waiting for marriage all this time, but in reality, marriage was an arbitrary level of commitment - to "know" that the person you're with, really is the one, and is going to be the one, forever. So what if you've met the one, and you're all set to decide that she's the one you want to be with, no matter what? Is it alright to go on with all of the physical aspects then? I don't see anything wrong with it.

Except maybe one thing. How she feels. I know what she'd told me, and I know everything that's happened these past few weeks. But the only person's true feelings I know are my own, at least for now. And while everything's fallen into place like the dream I dreamed, gave up on, and dared to dream again, realistically, it's been barely a month. A month to fall in love? It took me barely a week, and I'm sure she was taken aback and at least a bit doubtful when I said it.

Oh yes, I said it. And I mean it this time. :o) Mean it as in, I don't just love her, even if that's all that I told her then. She's the love of my life, and I know already she's the one I'd want to live every moment of the rest of my life with. I mean I love her because she's my favorite person in the world, the only one I'd ever want. And if there were an after, I don't know if I could live with anyone else at all. Because anyone else in the present, even to the love of your life in the distant, would always be second best.

So where does that leave me and my conundrum? Up until recently, I was still feeling the same way I had always felt. And I was nervous because I could feel myself getting drawn in, unable to resist or restrain myself, and yet, not knowing why. Did I suddenly lose all of my apprehensions, and that moral decency, when the opportunity presented itself? I think, perhaps, everything's the same as it's always been. The temptation and desire's been there, and with someone like her, how could it not? But paradoxically, it's that very thing - her forwardness, which has quashed all my apprehensions and worries. Even aside from the physical, she's been aggressively and passionately devoted, far more than I am. Dare I say, I've been one-upped in romanticism? The amazing thing is, she's made me secure and comfortable with all of it - every aspect of a relationship, every apprehension, and every bit that I ever used to worry myself over.

I don't know my answer, just yet. I have a feeling that it'll happen when it's meant to happen. For now, every tomorrow is a page yet to be written. And every today makes me more and more sure that this is the one book I never want to put down.

I met an amazing girl at Berkeley today.

2006-04-22T23:59:00.000-07:00

I met an amazing girl at Berkeley today. (Part 1)

I met an amazing girl at Berkeley today.

It was Cal Day today. I'd been staying at the Stanford Admit Weekend, a three-night overnight program for prospective freshmen admits (ProFros) - I was planning to take a day off and go to UC Berkeley's Cal Day for prospective freshmen. On a dare and a whim I decided to ask this girl.

At the time, I really wasn't sure about anything. Maybe she seemed a little interested in me, and after a week of subtle suggestion and attraction - her pretty smile and whitty conversation and bright demeanor ("pleasure and disquietude") - I decided that I wanted a chance to know more, to know her more. So on a late night Thursday conversation, I decided to ask. Why not? Well 'why not'? would be my explanation for my rationale at the time... but it's taken me a few days, a quantum leap, and her casual mention of a distinct movie memory for me to fully realize what I had really wanted.

Excerpt from Wednesday, June 22, 2005

"A point that some movie also discussed a long time ago.. Maybe that is why we (or some of us) are so desperate to find a relationship with someone. Without social contacts, what are we? We can accomplish the greatest things in the world, build empires and create masterpieces of work... but what are they without someone to witness them? A simple footnote in history. So... Picasso painted Guernica. Famous painting. We know about the work, yes... it is simply something that exists. But what of the man himself? Who was there through all the effort and toil as he painted it? Who was there, at the moment he completed it, was there to revel in the glory of its creator's accomplishment? What if there wasn't? Then it's simply another thing that happened, another thing that exists. Outside of his own mind, the experience of its creation, its completion, is something that never exists.

Nathan Yan's life:

Stuff that happened
Stuff that happened
Stuff that happened
Stuff that happened
Stuff that happened
Stuff that happened
Stuff that happened
Stuff that happened
Stuff that happened

Does that mean anything to you? No, it doesn't. It's a list of accomplishments and significant events in life. But... no one was there. No one witnessed it. So, sure, they exist, as a factual record of things that happened. But, as real experiences, as personal experiences, they don't exist. How sad a life is that, to rush through life to get to the end result, and not (or not being able to) revel in the experience of it. To put it in a less abstract sense, it's like simming through a baseball season, just so you can look at the final stats. Maybe, that's the part most interesting, or at least, the part most interesting to everyone else. But you're completely missing the individual games, the individual events in between. When we published the paper... that was a notable event that happened. All the people who participated it in got excited for the period, putting together the papers, shipping them over to Mr. Speranza's class. But the next day... heck, the next period, people had already moved on to other things. They read their own articles, and then looked over the layouts, skimmed some of the articles. Took a glance at the CPU article, and said "Hell, I'm not going to sit through this." For me, sure the paper was a lot of things, a representation of times and the experience of writing those articles, but for everyone else, even those that actually read it, it was a "great read" from teachers or, "long article" from students. Sadly, that's how life is. People don't appreciate, and can't appreciate, the things that you cherish in life - they weren't there to experience it with you. This, Nathan Yan's life:

Stuff that happened
Stuff that happened
Stuff that happened

is how history, how life will look at you, when there's no one else around to share your life with you. (Maybe that's what bites me the most about that day at Habitat for Humanity... even with someone else there, it didn't mean anything to that person.. Just another afterthought of a mundane day. And so the experience, that becomes simply another event in the life of. Despite my experience, it's meaningless to anyone else.) Everyone has had experiences like that... something that you've done or accomplished on your own that you're just absolutely proud of... but it doesn't mean anything to me. Nor does it mean anything to anyone else, because no one else was there to witness you work on it, to witness you accomplish it. How many times I was up at night, working on the paper and articles, and reveling in myself how kick-ass the layout or the writing were. And how I wish, that there was someone there, right alongside me, working on the paper too - not to get the work done quicker or more efficiently, but just to have that same experience with.

So go for it. If nothing else matters in life, that does."

The movie here was Shall We Dance - a monologue of sorts by Susan Sarandon, I think. I love it when I read over material and find content so relevant to life today. Makes me feel a bit proud that I had all of this figured out when I was at an age much younger and inexperienced than I am now.

So I've struggled with the "what I want" question for years. Of course everyone wants consummate - to have that passion, that emotional intimacy, that committed dedication. Earlier in my years I wanted all that and love at first sight, too. And I got that - at least the love at first sight part. But it wasn't the love I wanted, not really even 'love' in the sense I define it today. It was the physical kind of attraction and relationship, with the wrong kind of person - the wrong kind for me - and it was messed up in every way that fear, lust, oblivity and deception can twist a relationship into a series of physical events and selfish desires.

Emotionally I think it scarred me for a long time. The biggest was the trust issue, something which expanded into nearly every other facet of any romantic relationship I've ever had. I think it's why I've held back and found problems with everything... The first time things ended horribly, and it didn't have to happen if I had simply noticed the glaring issues and imperfections that were there to begin with. And I think that's been the catalyst for my problem-seeking mentality since then. It seems all physical - how will it last without an intimate emotional attachment? There's a great emotional connection - but what about the passion and excitement that makes it something more? I can't believe how much this feels like... like. But what about commitment - how will I know she'll stay when we're not in so good of the times anymore? I think going into every potential attraction I've ever had, I've carried along all of those same anxieties because... well - what I tell myself is that I want to make sure the second person is going to be... the one. That I want to make sure if I ever go into a relationship again, it would work, and it would last. I think the deeper and baser reason, though, is that I'm in utter fear of another crash-and-burn relationship, the same kind that ripped out my heart and all my ideals and hopes freshman year. And so, oddly enough, I'm the one with commitment issues, by virtue of having the highest standards for commitment, I need the assurance of real potential, a real chance for love and for things to last forever. Well, maybe not the assurance... but I need the ability to convince myself of those things.

So for a time, at least, I had given up on love... and shortly after that I decided that I didn't really need all of the love. I didn't need it to be all consummate, although that would of course be nice. But it would be unrealistic, and I think I'd kill myself more, get trashed around a lot more, hoping and dreaming for that. I decided that what I really wanted was to just have someone there. Before I think that it was always a sense of absence... a lot of physical absence, despite all of its physical basis, but more importantly a complete absence of intimacy on the emotional level. What I wanted was simply presence, and on the triangular theory I suppose that would be commitment - simply to have someone there, someone who was attracted on whatever basis, and wanted to be attracted forever. I think I hoped that... as long as commitment was present, the rest of passion and intimacy would fall into place, in time. I don't think I really knew why at that point. Just that I knew it was what I wanted. To have someone be there, and to be there with that person.

I think sometime last year I started figuring it all out. It was that single scene, that single speech that pieced it all together for me. What I was always missing, and what I always wanted was the passive love. Everyone does active love - going out on dates, holding hands and making out in hallways and elevators. Active love creates the moment, defines the moment by romantic actions. But love can't be active all the time, not in the long term at least. And that's what killed me the first time around. As soon as that physical passion, that active love had evaporated, so had she. There was never a point when it was like spending every waking second of your life with that person. So I suppose that even in this I was still an idealist. I never wanted separate spheres of life - I could never have such a thing as "girlfriend time" and being done with that, move on to "other friends time" or "work time". Quite possibly, there could be a separate time for romance... but it would never be precluded from other friends or work. So that even if I was with my friends, the love of my life would be there too... and even if I had work, she would be there too. So that even when the active love stopped or took a break, as inevitable, the passive love would always be there, her presence always would remain whether I was with other friends, or working, or doing any activity. Active or passive, she, whoever she, would be integral to every facet of life.

There are lovers, the active. And what Susan Sarandon's character mentions is the passive. The "witness". I don't think I could top what I wrote a year ago, and definitely not the actual words from the movie. But it is, having someone there, not to make a moment as active love does, but as the very nature of passive love, to experience the moment, and to be a part of it. Life is filled with the experiences of the world. Take Italy this summer, for instance. It was an amazing time, one of the most fun experiences I've ever had, and 5 weeks in which I experienced the most growth in my life. I'll read back on my own private diary entries, look back at my own photographs, and each one carries with it such a story and such an experience. But all everyone else back here at home has are my own stories and accounts. Which gives a sense of the scene, as far as imagination will take them. But it's not sharing the moment with someone else, and no one will ever really know how it was like. Keeping it all within yourself, never without a genuine outlet, it's a life that seems empty. A life that doesn't seem fulfilled.

So I guess what I always wanted was a companion. A companion, one who satisfies all the requirements of active love, and at the same time a witness to all that you experience. The companion who lives your life alongside their own, and whose life you live alongside your own. The companion, passive, who's there to live and experience all of your life, and the companion, active, who is an actual, integral facet of your life, the companion who is your life experience.

So what I wanted was a companion. Oh, all of the anxieties and worries were still there. Figuring out what I really wanted didn't mean bringing that forthrightness into real world applications. But every great thing that ever happened to me for those 2 or 3 years was tinged with that hint of melancholy that it would be a memory exclusively of my own.

So on that Thursday night I decided I wanted things to be different. I decided that I wouldn't live another second of my life in solitude, if I could help it. On Thursday night I decided finally that I had been asking too many questions, that quite possibly, the perfect girl might just have been standing before me, with myself too absorbed in the nightmare of my relationship(s) past to notice the potential for real romance, real companionship, real love right before me. It was a Thursday night, and on a dare and a whim, I asked her. To come with me to Cal Day. She didn't know it, and I don't think I realized it until now. I asked her to Cal Day, and I checked my inhibition at the door, told myself that I wanted a new life, in fact the old life that once upon a day where eternal naïveté still graced the spotless mind, I dreamed about and wished for. Told myself exactly what I wanted. I wanted her, to be that active companion at Cal Day - a date of sorts, if you will. I wanted her, to be that passive companion, to be a part of my once-in-a-lifetime experience at Cal Day, once-in-a-lifetime experience making that college decision. I wanted her in every capacity possible, I wanted her integral to every part of my life. I wanted her. So Thursday on a dare and a whim I asked her to Cal Day.

And she said yes.

I met an amazing girl at Berkeley today. (Part 2)

She said yes.

Now what? To be honest, in all my terrible excitement and bewilderment and... anticipation... I had really no idea what was supposed to happen next. I know what I wanted... but was she the someone I wanted to be that what? I think I've always been a knowledge guy - I crave knowing. In class I want to know how it all works, how the largest and most complex of things still boil down and function at their basic elements. None of the 'memorize this mnemonic' rubbish. That's why I've always loved math, liked physics - and hated chemistry. That's the way I've always been in romance, too, I think. At any point, I've always known - or was convinced of my knowing - exactly what I wanted. But I've always been uncertain of the other side. What she thought, how she felt, what she wanted. And I don't think I could ever do anything until I absolutely knew for sure. What she thought, how she felt, what she wanted. Knew everything, and had my plan, before I could make any action, act on any impulse. Before I could tell her what I thought, how I felt, what I wanted.

And in one day along comes a girl with the allure to conquer it all.

Saturday morning, I find myself waking up early on the floor of a Stanford dorm room. It might've been 6:00. It's one of those bright, cold, and brisk sort of mornings. Chilly and refreshing, a slight breeze of cold air that wakes you up in the morning, and the sun shining all along. One of my two favorite kind of mornings, right up there with waking up to the heaviest downpours of morning rain.

She told me the night before that her street was fairly new, so it probably didn't show up on the online maps. It didn't, so she gave me the address of a nearby building instead. I follow the directions I looked up the night before, and as I drive up the road I got a familiar sense of deja vu. I've been here before. By the time we pull into the actual street, I knew where I was. She lives in the house I helped build. The Habitat for Humanity lot, that I had worked on in another life. Funny how the future always comes with strings to the past.

I met an amazing girl at Berkeley today. (Part 3)

She comes out dazzling and sophisticate. A stylish teal (sort of) kind of shirt, with a cute tie wrapped around her neck. All smiles.

We arrived at Berkeley about an hour later... Walked up the main driveway, just in time to cross paths with Josiah, who had been there since the day before. We chatted for a bit, and when we got to the beginning of the booths Josiah went to go check out his own events and information, and she and I were left in the midst of a bustling crowd of Berkeley admits.

I grabbed some information at the EECS booth, just a simple sheet summary of the events going on. Most all of it was centered around the two main EECS buildings, Cory and Soda Halls, so we headed over there. It was still mid-morning, so there was actually not much - mostly practical demonstrations, race cars with optical sensors and robotics made from a kit (MIT > Berkeley, yeah). The main events were two presentations going on later that afternoon, an information session presented by faculty about the program, and a Q&A with current EECS students. We explored a bit around one of the floors in the Cory Hall building, until we ran into one of the tours which was going around the EECS buildings. We decided to follow along and join them, and the tour guide took us on a tour through Cory Hall, mainly offering peaks into some of the rooms and talking about the program and the different courses. He then took us over to the Foothill "engineering" dormitories, so named for their proximity (two blocks) from the main engineering buildings.

And I think it may have been love at first sight. The La Loma complex was sort of built enclosing a nice tranquil naturey area, and if it ever snowed in Berkeley you'd absolutely believe you were standing in a Swiss chalet. It was nothing like a college dorm, and every bit like a... winter lodge? Woodsy utopian college living quarters? The first thing that popped into my mind was: ultimate study environment. The furthest thing removed from the always-active scene I had imagined of the units and typical college dorm houses, or even from the kind of environment I felt at Stanford the night before. My second thought was: how romantic it'd be to have a perfect night, and return home to a place like this. I looked to her on my right, and I think she might've loved the place too. And I could imagine the perfect day at classes, night out on the town, returning home to that enclosed courtyard. I'd hold her hand, and we'd gaze into each others eyes, and lean in for...

A sudden sense of movement as the tour guide and the rest of the group trekked along. She was still at my side, gazing around; I hope she hadn't seen me off and daydreaming. We walked along for a bit, through the rest of the Foothill dormitories, all of which admittedly paled in comparison to La Loma. We returned back to Cory Hall, where the tour guide left us off, and from there we walked across the street to Soda Hall. By chance we walked in just as a computer animation presentation was starting, so we sat in. Or rather, there being no adjacent-seat vacancies left in the crowd, we stood in. It was then that I realized I still had on my maroon shirt - Stanford red from that morning and the evening before. So I changed into my blue dress shirt, which I had planned to do earlier but hadn't really found the opportunity to do. The presentation was positively fascinating - they ran through an entire process of modeling, texturing, and animating. It would have been all the more engrossing if only I had my glasses at the time, so I could actually see what was being done up in front. However, I had the distinct sense that she was bored out of her mind throughout the thing, so I asked her if she wanted to go, and we cut out of the presentation short.

I was done with all of my activities for the time, except until the two main EECS seminars later on that afternoon, so I left it up to her to decide what to do. There were musical and dance performances going on all day at Sproul Plaza, and being the theatre girl she is, she undoubtedly wanted to go, so I obliged. We arrived to find the Cal Band in full tandem, an exciting scene - big music and big crowds. Tina called around this time, and asked about our lunch arrangements - I had talked with Josiah about getting all of us Berkeley admits together and meeting for lunch somewhere. They were still in the process of getting organized, so after the band finished their performance we headed over and out into the city for a tour of the Unit dorms. Unit 3 was the closest, so by convenience we began our tour of the "party dorm" first. They took us down to the computer lab, where I was horribly disappointed to find out about a 5GB/week bandwidth limit. Oh, no chump change to be sure, and plenty of excess, but I wonder now whether or not I'll be able to run a suitable web server over such a limit. Before the party could continue, however, Josiah called - we were meeting for lunch.

I met an amazing girl at Berkeley today (Part 4)

We walked back towards Sproul Plaza, and the gate, where we met up with Josiah and all the rest for lunch. We trekked back out towards the units again, and found a decent courtyard kind of food plaza, with a variety of flavors and types. And yet somehow, despite the quick and easy, in-and-out food court stands, we all end up on a second floor Shanghainese restaurant, featuring the slowest service ever seen at a restaurant. Ever. We pass by an hour, and nearly two, talking over how everyone's day went so far... housing and tours and exhibits and plans. Before I know it, and before the food's even arrived, I realize it's nearly already time for the EECS presentations, way back at the Bechtel Engineering building on the far side of campus.

We end up staying another hour, and make our way through about half of the fairly large plates, before we've already had our fill, and decide to leave to get to the 2nd EECS program. I think the lesson we all learned that day was where not to eat at Berkeley.

So we make our way over to the Sibley Auditorium at Bechtel, where we get in and sit down just as they're getting underway. It's a Q&A session with current EECS students, and it's in fact very informative and very engaging, probably the most informative and clear perspective I'd gotten of Berkeley at any of the events during Cal Day, and it alleved a lot of the concerns and questions I had had before about the college.

And all the while she sat there beside me, listening as intent as I was, and interested in what the panel of students were talking about, interested in what I was going to decide. I realized then she would be that ultra-supportive, everything-girl. It's a hard thing to describe; I suppose the best example would be to say that she seemed to embody that ideal "Mayor's wife" – supportive, interested, and even wanting to be involved with what I was thinking, what I was planning, what I was deciding. More and more, she seemed to embody the ideal woman I had always dreamed of, the companionate love who would be there in everything, through everything, just like she sat there now, sitting in and listening to a discussion among a panel of Electrical Engineering/Computer Science double majors that should have in all right bored her out of her mind. I think that was the first time I thought of her as amazing - this amazing girl I was meeting at Berkeley today.

We stepped out of the Bechtel building, and it might have been around… 3pm? The crowds at Cal Day were beginning to thin out from their middle-of-HK density earlier in the day, although there were still tons of students abound everywhere. Myself, I think I was entranced already, within my own world where the only people who existed, the only two people still left at Berkeley who mattered, were her and me.

We set off to see the housing at the Units, our last (or my last) stop for the day, and on the way there we passed by the tower, which was supposed to have lifts running to the top through 4pm. The lady there said that they had actually just closed for the day, although it was barely past 3. I was disappointed, to say the least… although that's not to imply I had anything planned at all.

So we made our way back over to the Units, where we were touring before lunch. We walked over to Unit 1 this time, since I doubted that I would end up living in Unit 3 next year, if I decided on going to Berkeley. The Units looked nice, if a little cramped, especially the triples; after actually seeing the rooms I don't know how three of us could have fit in one of those. I absolutely fell in love with the wide-open windows. Maybe it was just the time of day, or the surprisingly nice weather we were having that day. But it was bright, and the rooms were all so… sunny and well-lit. I suppose that, more than anything, convinced me that the Units were livable after having seen the beautifully tranquil chalet that was La Loma at Foothills.

We toured through the rest of the facilities at Unit 1, and heard all about their counseling resources and their new all-organic dining hall. I think she let off a sigh that echoed my sentiments exactly when the tour guide mentioned that bit. We sat down briefly in this room for a short presentation by I think the academic resources director? Or some sort of counselor or person who directed this tutor program. It was all a blur at that point, and about the only thing I remember was that when we got up to continue the tour, I put my hands on hers, for just a split second. I'm not even sure if she noticed; I was too scared to even look at how she'd react. A half-second later we were on our way, and I took my hand away, simultaneously trepidating and breathless all at once.

We ended our tour of Unit 1, and headed out the exit. After a bit of walking, we found ourselves deep into the city of Berkeley, and nowhere near the university. It took a bit of map-reading and asking for directions to figure out that we had left Unit 1 through the wrong side, and so rather than walking toward the campus we were actually walking away from it.

So we headed back the right way, and when we finally reached the campus we found it… deserted. Well, not completely. But the student club and organization booths had all closed up shop, leaving a long row of tables and papers strewn about the main walkway running through the campus. There were still a few students, both Berkeley and ProFro, walking around, although it appeared as if most people were on their way out. It was around 4, but I didn't need to get back to Stanford for awhile, so we decided to stay and walk around a bit.

The day had been… adventurous, exciting, and… informative. I learned a lot about Berkeley, too. We talked, for the most part, and despite my initial fears of finding nothing in common that could sustain conversation beyond the 4- or 5-minute passing periods I was used to with most girls, I found that… conversation flowed easily, perhaps for the first time in a situation where I've found myself conversing with a girl I was attracted to. And it wasn't all of the usual and generic dialogue filler… the kind of "oh so how'd your… classes go?" and that such we use in stead of real topics of interest, not that, she being in another year entirely, I had the option of carrying on a conversation founded upon that anyhow. It was fun, and perhaps exhilarating, to explore her mind, and with every second more I spent with her, every bit more I learned about her, she was steadily revealing herself to quite possibly be the perfect girl, my ideal girl. Most exhilarating of all, was the long-lost feeling, that melancholy I denied for several months and thought myself rid of altogether – dare I say, I found myself to be attracted to a girl again.

Most everyone else had left; Josiah had called a few minutes before to tell me that he and Alvina were leaving on BART, leaving the two of us as the last ones there. My day wasn't over yet. Coming in I had nothing planned, but in spite of that I think I still harbored every wish and desire that she would turn out to be everything I hoped she'd be, that maybe somewhere along the way a spark would fly, and I'd find myself completely attracted to her and find that she, by some improbable cosmic alignment of the fates, was attracted to me too. And all through the day, I think I secretly wished for it, despite telling myself that she was a formerly acquaintanced recently friend… who had happened to ask me to prom, and that I in any case was completely and decisively over and done with girls.

So on the walk along the upslope, toward the general direction of the tower, I took her hand and held it in mine. And it was like the world stopped right there – where before we were carrying on a lively conversation, the scene was suddenly quiet, like time had stopped. Even the background sounds, people bustling about far off, seemed muted. But she didn't back off, not for a second. The moment my hand began to graze against her fingers I think she may have grabbed my hand as much as I took hers. We just kept on walking, and after a bit I think I said something, and in an instant we were right back to where we were, and nothing had changed at all. Except that she still held her hand onto mine, and except that I knew then this amazing girl I was meeting at Berkeley somehow managed to find a way through to my heart, and that somehow she had found a way to fall for me, too.

We walked around for a bit, exploring the back parts of Berkeley, walking around the outside of the Greek Theatre or the stadium. We finally made our way down, on this foresty path alongside a creek, and reached the end of the campus, and made our way to the BART station. The 5:30 train back to San Francisco.

There wasn't much on the train, not any two adjacent seats, anyhow, so she sat and I stood, or kneeled, next to her. Some time after the Bay Bridge the seat vacated and I sat down next to her, and we sat and held hands and talked.

My ride back to Stanford was waiting at Balboa Park. The line ended at Daly City, and her stop was another one down, a transfer to another train for Colma. The train stopped at Balboa, and with the 6:00 from Berkeley the last train down to San Franscisco for Saturday service, and us having taken the 5:30, I wasn't sure if there would be a train back up to Balboa if I went on to Daly City. So when the train stopped at Balboa, I got ready to leave, looked into her eyes and told her goodbye, and… realized I wasn't quite ready to go, not just yet. And despite the day turning out more amazing than I could have possibly imagined when I woke up that morning, it wasn't perfect, just yet. Had I left right then, and went on my way back to Stanford, I would have been in ecstasy for a week, just from the day I had thus far. And although I knew she had enjoyed spending the day with me, I thought that, perhaps, her day wouldn't be complete either. After all, the stories that transpire on silver screens never ends without a…

So I stay on the train, and I thought I may have caught a smile of surprise and elation when the doors closed and the train started moving and I was still there. We made our way to the end of the line, and got off at Daly City.

The platform there was split in two: her southbound, down to Colma, on the left; my northbound, back to Balboa Park, on the right. So we stood between the escalators on opposite sides of the building, two directions and two sides of the city. I took her hands in mine, and gazed into her eyes for a long while. I leaned in and closed my eyes, and all the while the single thought running through my mind was, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to kiss Wh…"

Kiss.

It was soft and short and sweet… and sublime. The most perfect first kiss I'd ever experience, I ever could imagine. It was the best kiss I've had, ever. And I don't think any of the sensual details I might write would either be appropriate or truly descriptive of how that moment felt.

I gazed into her eyes again, and said goodbye. We parted, going opposite ways, feeling happier and more… complete than I've ever felt in my life. I boarded the escalator up to the platform level, and as I emerged at the top I found myself on one side of a platform separated in the middle by the train tracks. I looked over to the opposite side and saw her, and it was her, coming off the escalator on the other side… for the second time in a minute, taking my breath away.

We both smiled and laughed, glancing across the tracks at each other standing on the other side. Wishing we could be on the other side, waiting for our trains together. My train came within a few minutes, racing past and braking into the platform, her image on the other side erased by the train's speeding blur. I stepped in, and took a window across from her, still smiling and giggling in uncontainable delight. Then she calls me, and from opposite sides of the platform we talk; I can see her mouth speaking the words before they actually get to me. Then comes an announcement that the train will be stalled at the platform for another 12 minutes. And I run off the train, down the escalator, over across the station and up to her side of the platform to see her again. I wrap my arms around her from behind, and I hold her as we stand there on the platform. Me, imagining the luck of the world that I have, for such an amazing day, meeting perhaps, finally, my ideal companionate, my dream girl. As the minutes ticked down I wish we could have simply stood there forever. I parted this time more reluctant than even before, and as I got back onto my train on the other side, hers arrived. She took a seat next to mine, and we gazed at each other through the windows of trains bound for opposite destinations. Her train pulled away first, and the last image I had was her flying by, a last fleeting, dazzling smile to remember her by until the next time we'd see each other again. A few seconds later my own train pulled on, and I think I might've simply melted and died in my seat right then, only to come back to my senses as the train pulled into the Balboa Park Station.

After three years of sullen resignation, dashed hope and for a time, exasperated frustration and recovery from this at-times-dreaded-and-at-times-not affliction of attraction, I thought once again that perhaps I might have my fairytale romance and find the love of my life after all. The ideal girl, the perfect girlfriend, had simply fallen into my life; no endless pursuit, no agonizing wait and brood and worry and wonder, just. Knock knock. At my doorstep.

Two Colleges, Four Girls, One Night & One Life

2006-04-11T22:57:00.000-07:00

In all my excitement over the past few weeks, I suppose I've neglected to address two very serious issues: schools and girls. I know, I know, that abrupt and sudden dearth of girl drama must have seemed strange and void-creating.

So college or girls? I think I'll address the former first, and save the best for last. I've been pretty quiet on the college front; I don't think I've told anyone where I'd applied or where I've been accepted out of my own volition. A bit of a pity, on how that last bit of news got out; I'd hate to get everyone's hopes up and then spoil them later on, because as of the moment I'm really not sure.

The college applications process is harsh on most everybody. I suppose the black-and-white... booleanity of it really makes a defining factor between the diligents and the losers in life. But nonetheless, it's harsh, and it's partly because of the big deal that students (and society) make of it. At the K-12 level, no one really cares - you take what is that's closest, or strikes the best balance between education, safety, and convenience for your parents. I'm probably one of few people who ever raised a fuss and lived a melancholy four years about not being able to go to my dream high school, Lowell. You get to the college level, then, and now you're given a choice. And that, with the heavy weight that employers put into the name of your alma-mater, and the fact that it's your very last chance to school and disco... well it makes it the definitive crossroad of your childhood, and life beyond. So it's harsh, to have that dream crushed. To spend a childhood planning your life around a dream and a goal and then to have that opportunity taken away, and told that you won't be having that life. It's not just about the career opportunities that come later, but even the short term, the college life you're going to live. So it's crushing -and abruptly if you're not a realist- to find that you won't be doing the college thing in that childhood-idolized college in the dream region of the world, or to perhaps find that it's community college and at least another 2 years at home with mom and dad and a bleak outlook of never being able to grow up. Oh, it's not so bad, in reality; hope is always there and in 4 years you'll have found the situation you ended up in turned you out alright after all, if you took the time to try hard enough. But rejection is all the same in emotion and magnitude; that taking away of the dream sucks the life out of you, for the time being at least, whether it's coming from Davis or Berkeley or MIT.

That's the boat I find myself in. It's a boat decked full with similar souls alike, like a slave ship. All chained down by hopes that didn't realize. There are others in much more dire situations; they're the ones facing rejection all-around and are looking at 2-year community college, and a UC or State transfer, at best. That's the pragmatic that's different. What's same is the formalism; it's all that same feeling of rejection... Wishes gone and now what's left? After you've spent a childhood developing that plan and dream of life, everything else becomes second-best. And despite how good or viable that recourse you're left to is, it will still always be second best, and your rejection will always be the life you never had, the one you look back at whistfully and wish, "if only, if only."

So for me, MIT will always be that which never was. That Lowell of Colleges that plagues me the rest of my life. Same as everyone else will always wonder and wish, "What if I had gotten into Berekeley?" Or San Diego, or Davis. And it's rendered me without any real enthusiasm for the future - I'll go to college, excell to the best of my abilities... get a master's from University College and spend my life with a decent living as a middling engineer. It's an O-K life, a tolerable one, but it's not the kid inside you who wanted to grow up someday and be an astronaut piloting starships across the galaxy. And you'll be lying to say that you're content. So some people see a choice now... between Berkeley/Stanford. For some it could be a cause of excitement, unbound enthusiasm for the future. Either is great, no doubt, but it'll only appeal to you if you've gone through life wishing for Berkeley or Stanford to be your dream school (and many have)... for me you could put UCLA and SD in the same standing. All I see is a list of not-MIT, not-MIT, not-MIT...

Have I hit the nature of the all-consuming rejection yet? I think that's the spot, but maybe I'm wrong. How do you feel?

On other fronts I am proud to say that there are no less than four girls in my life. Not in the traditional sense; if you took that definition there would be no one. But prom opens up the playing field and makes men desperate... disparate? (sp?) At the very least I can go on knowing I've had two people profess their somewhat attraction. My life's content with the knowledge that somewhere in the world, there is a niche female type that finds me attractive. No it's not a patheticness thing - you've all wondered at the possibility sometime or another, haven't you? Yes... yes. Yes right?

So prom. What exactly does it mean? That the uber-question, because it means so many different things to so many different people. I'm more than content leaving prom to be an arduous night of surviving rap music and hip-hoppers, with the potential to have some sort of fun with some friends. Once upon a time I might have wished for it to be the all out romantic night of my life... I'd seal the deal and finally tell the amazingly sublime yet woefully oblivious girl of my high school dreams how much I liked her, and it'd be the first night of the rest of my life. I'm sure a lot of others still entertain that dream. Prom Truth #1: It's hopelessly unrealistic; deal and accept it, and you'll be a whole lot better off and have more fun that night.

So I find myself now in a situation knowing what I'd want, yet not being exactly sure what anyone else wants. Does she entertain those same romantic thoughts? Does she expect anything more than a fun night out? How much of a party does she expect me to be? But beneath all those questions and doubts, I suprisingly find myself teeming with excitement to have a prom date.

...to whom I've not fully accepted yet. Prom Truth #2: The best thing you can ever do is to go alone - no pressure, no drama, all party all fun. And in truth, that's all I want from prom night, and in truth I'd think it'd work out best, for everyone, if we were all to go alone. She wouldn't have any expectations, and I wouldn't be put in an awkward and uncomfortable position. And what fun would happen, would happen... It'd be the best for everyone... if she didn't have her heart set on going with me. Which I was fairly certain of at first, but after-hours conversations and third-party information has thrown even that into limbo. Of course, I'm not her first choice. She'd have her heart set on going with someone else, if she had her way, but she can't, and now she wants me. But who would ever settle for second best? If I had a choice in it, and the stakes were as simple as one prom night rather than 4+ years of education, I might well decide that after MIT, Berkeley or Stanford wouldn't be good enough, and take my contentment with UC City College. If I were in her same boat, I'd just as well decide to be alone, rather than find my second best after rejection from my first-best.

But that's not me. My reality is that I haven't got any first-best, which is why I'd be more than happy to go with any of the aforementioned four ladies. I'd never and don't see any of them as a second-best, nor first-best... they're just... each in a class of their own, that class being varying perspectivies on contentment. And what of her thoughts? By virtue of her asking, I'm not a second-best; if I was she wouldn't have bothered asking over her first-best. So I'm her first-best, along with him and everyone (anyone?) else, and her second best is... not going with anyone at all. I think if anything that is her bleak college rejection. The question now is: has she got another person in mind? If she does it's great. If she doesn't, I'll stand before her on Monday as her dream maker or dream crusher.

Prom Truth #3: If you're a party guy, finding a party girl and making it casual is an acceptable alternative. The problem here is, I'm not a party guy. I've never been, and I don't know if I can remake myself into the form of one. Maybe that worked once in Italy. But it was a different setting, and more importantly different music. But I suppose if I tell her yes, I'll be compelled to. Because I can't bear saying yes and then going on to ruin her night with my lack of sociability and ability to dance! Oh, prom committee, won't you please hire a live band?

Prom Truth #4: If you do happen to find yourself chained to someone, make sure there aren't any expectations. All these problems, are of course, presuming she wants it to be the night of her life. It won't be of course, because I'm not her first-first choice. But she wants it to be a night, and I'm finding myself lacking the capacity to deliver on that; with me it might well be a horrid night, which would end up worse than giving her the early advice now to find someone else, and at a last resort go alone rather than to shack up with a lame sit-around like me. At least, I assume she wants it to be a night. Perhaps she doesn't? Then it could be all casual and I'd be at ease, and everything could go splendidly. Why don't I just ask her then? Because I haven't yet found an excuse to reveal that I've succesfully stalked her screenname.

We'll see how that unfolds in the coming weeks. I suppose it might be more or less settled? Before this happened I had another, then another, then another in mind. First there was... the former Ms. Girl of my Dreams... and it's been tumultuous, beyond what I can describe here, over the past year... a few weeks ago (only a few weeks!), I thought things had changed radically... but now it's back to that same, aquantince-like chasm... made more awkward by the fact that I thought things had changed and were different. Perhaps this is as far as "different" goes. In any case... it's been slowly detiriorating to the point where I've completely misplaced my own feelings. Or perhaps they've gone away altogether. I really don't know where things go from here... and of all people, I think she may be the one person who'd be more disinterested in this whole prom deal than myself - I doubt she'd want to go anyway, with or without me. It'd be all awkward, and no fun... and to be honest: without the romance bit, which seems to be gone from both of us these days, what is there left?

There's of course the cool girl. I'd imagine it'd be fun, and casual to the max. But like the girl who asked there's this sense of awe and insignifigance... she's much "too cool" for me, and even if she'd say yes, there's the sense that she'd be on a completely different level of fun and sociability that I could never keep up with.

Then there's of course the one who actually asked me. I already detailed all the tribulations above... And it could be fun, if I could possibly keep up. But what about the rest? I don't know how comfortable I'd ever be. I know her fairly well, but I'm not what you could ever call intimate, or intimate to the level where I could feel intimate. So as much as I think I could keep up conversationally (I've developed my adeptness in that, at least), it would still be upkeeping a conversation. "Hi, sexy stranger" rather than the flowing jazz times of two good friends.

Lastly, there is perhaps the person I would most want to go with. Not because of any sort of attraction there, or not even because I'd want to have fun dancing that night. But of anyone, she's the only person I know who I could be completely and 100% comfortable with. Where I wouldn't have to do things extra and worry myself over becoming something of her dream date, although I wouldn't mind doing any of that... because it wouldn't have to carry any weight with it, as my mind forces myself to do with almost anyone else. But I don't think she's really that enthused to go, and even if that wasn't the case it'd be a lot of trouble for her to, so...

...we'll see. Or maybe you should all vote :P

Chapter 17: Sparknote for my Evolving Thoughts on Love at Nineteen years of Age

2006-03-17T02:29:00.000-08:00

Tonight we take a moment to define sanity.

Through the course of the past few months we've read many a work - As I Lay Dying, Hamlet - which touch on the idea of madness or insanity, the main point being that sanity is in the eye of the beholder. At times, as with mob generalizations, we might label insanity to be that of the actions of one perceived by the many to be outside of the norm. It's the context in which "insanity" is used mostly - erroneously. But the true meaning lies within the incomprehensibility of the reason and motive behind those actions - that is the thing that is perplexing, that can't be understood. Women - some of them - have a way of action that is incomprehensible to men: why they do this or why they did that lacks any implicit logic whatsoever, and at times I doubt that had they explicitly explained such actions, that we would be able to understand them anyhow.

That all said, I am proud and sad to say that today in the world there is one less girl who we may consider insane.

At times I wonder if a girl can ever be romantic. Yes, it is a bit of an exclusive club which possesses this affliction... but I can say I've met at least a few men who are such romantics, or approach it. But in all my experience, I have never met a single girl who I could classify as romantic.

But first, what is romantic? For a time I never really considered the question... it was, by the dictionary's definition. Someone who wants to love, and be loved, and waxes romanticism. But I've found in recent times that the dictionary definition is what people will always assume, but is nearly never what you actually mean. And so, a romantic is not that bland generalization. If it were, anyone ever in a relationship is a romantic - we've all had those feelings of "love" and being "loved" at some point or another.

Romanticism is more specific... it is that mindset for which love is all-consuming. To love, be loved, every waking moment. When the entire rest of the world could vanish in the next heartbeat... the beat of your heart still could sustain, and be all that I would ever need. Life's capacity: To love, to love, to love, none else. And that's the mistake of the real romanticism, and what everyone else assumes to be - that is the distinction that makes romantics incompatible with anyone less dedicated.

For me, liking a girl - not simply the current but anyone who's ever been like and love and any mode of infatuation in between - has always been consumate. You like someone, but you don't simply like them: you like them intimately, you like them passionately, and you're committed. For a romantic, that is what's meant by "I like you."

But that is where the disconnect is. Because for most everyone... "I like you" is never consumate. They can like-like you, like you infatuously, fatuously, companionately... but never, almost never, consumately.

And that's fine. For some - nay, for most all - it is good enough. A stable relationship doesn't need to be consumate to still be loving, and for both its partners' affections to be mutual and sufficient. You can live a life fatuously - based on passion and commitment - so long as you have those necessary intimate components: close friends or family through which, the emotional and intimate needs are met. Or even those singular types who may exist contently on their own emotional independence. For those people, then, any intimacy provided in a romantic relationship is a luxury, but the relationship can and will exist just fine based on the passion and commitment involved, which fills the only needs that both partners have. Much the same for companionate relationships - if the sexual aspects are not of a large interest for either party, then its absence isn't of significant importance to the relationship - at least not a defining, make-or-break importance. But for a romantic, every single aspect is vital not only to the stability of the relationship, but to the definition of life itself. To love, to love, to love, none else.

But that isn't where the problems arise. Surely, even the staunchest romantic can go without emotional intimacy, go without the holding of hands and cuddling, for a time. Even for commitment - though not completely satisfying, just the knowledge of the other returning the same affections and thoughts is enough, even without any standing, binding, formal agreement. But the problem is the devotion involved.

In the past, she used to be in love with me. And she wanted to be in love with me forever. But, she didn't love me. And that's the break - for all is great and good when the focus of our love was simply passion. We could hold hands or sit together and cuddle and that would be enough for her, and almost enough for me. But what when she tired of the physical? The intimate aspect, that emotional aspect of her life, was something else from passion, and something that I wasn't a part of. But for myself, it was the same and alike with our physical intimacy, and our commitment, my emotional aspect was her, too, or at least I wanted it to be. But you see, she - and every normal person on the planet - had a life outside of me and us - she had emotional and intimate needs too, but those which could be filled as easily with friends or with family, or with whoever. And while for myself, I had many other friends and family who made up the emotional aspects of my life, she was a part of it too. Not only a part, but the integral part; I could not -cannot- be fully content in my life without her, and all of her.

And presently? Presently she likes me. And she wants to like me forever. But she's not in like with me. And I think, finally, I understand her. And so all such perceived inconsistencies in all this time... it is the effect of being incomplete in affection. Last week she seemed to like me, and I can only surmise that it was her emotion, her need to feel and be intimate. And this week we've still been good friends - that's the commitment that sustains us - but beyond that the relationship is suddenly and noticeably absent. At the present she's as intimate as she cares to be, and for her, as everyone else, with that need fulfilled she desires no more - my presence and conversation in our moments, but the rest she may be occupied with anything else, and be perfectly as content. But for myself, I love her consumately. And so when, when like her my desires for intimacy subside, my life doesn't transgress into its occupation with other things and people. Though I can work and interact just fine, my mind, the back of it somewhere, is always with her. And so even at moments with my desires for emotional intimacy, or physical intimacy, subsided, there is still and always aspects of me which still devote myself to her. That is the meaning of consumate affection - and that is the reality faced of all romantics who've sighed every breath of life they've breathed.

Sadly to say, despite my earnest hopes she's not my ideal woman. Nor, I wonder, if any girl will ever be. And so sadly to say, she may still be the best thing that will ever come along, and I suppose I'll take it? She'll be alright; sadly to say, in this resignation I'll still love her to an extent greater than she'll ever be able to comprehend.

And so perhaps, that makes me the most insane of all.

The Creationism Taboo: Teaching the controversy - a necessary part of teaching the science

2006-01-30T16:48:00.000-08:00

It’s been a wild ride over the last year in the age-old creation-or-evolution debate. Intelligent Design was pitched to religious fundamentalists as the end-all, “scientific” challenge to the theory of evolution. School-board battles were waged, won and lost, but amid all the arguments between religious leaders, scientists and politicians based on 1^st Amendment principle, the adults have completely lost sight of what should be the true goal: educating students.

However inadvertently, the Intelligent Design movement hit the mark with its “Teach the Controversy” campaign — it echoes the frustrations and concerns of creationist students across the nation. Make no mistake - I take evolution as more or less proven, and have no faith in the credibility of intelligent design or creationism. But for many students — even here in California — the issue is not so clear-cut: Why is creationism not possible? To many scientists and atheists, the reasoning seems logical and obvious. But as evidenced by the fact that 90 percent of the U.S. population believes in a god(s), according to a 2003 Harris Poll, for the vast majority it is a perfectly valid question, and one that the school system does not address.

To many students, evolution is presented by schools to be believed unquestioningly, on faith in teachers and the education board alone, and nothing is given to refute creationist theory; its discussion is the greatest taboo of modern education. Any teacher who would dare discuss it would face parental outrage or a lawsuit; any student caught gullible enough to believe its credibility would be ridiculed out of the classroom by peer disapproval.

In this way, evolution in the biology classroom is dogmatic in ways unlike any other branch of science. Like the word of the gods in times past, evolution is the sacrosanct pillar of science; just as no religious leader would tolerate the voice of a dissenter, no scientist today will tolerate any talk that creationism is plausible. Though Galileo was admonished for expressing notions counter to that of the Roman Catholic Church, I am sure that truly in his mind, he never reversed his beliefs; the Church only censored him and imposed its version of “truth”, never addressing the logic behind his wrong and their right.

In exactly the same way, in teaching evolution — and silencing all dissent in the classroom — the minds of creationist students will never be changed. We censor their notions and force-feed them evolution, and by the taboo of its discussion, we never address the doubts of creationists with the logic that is seemingly self-evident for most scientists.

In any other branch of science, teachers and curricula take a considerate approach to the failure of students to understand what is taught. To take a purely scientific example, we have Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the galactic speed limit of light (roughly 300,000,000 meters per second). It is, like evolution, a theory thoroughly proven and universally accepted by the scientific community. But to your typical high school physics student, and most of the general American public, the question is perfectly valid: “Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light? Won’t acceleration just keep increasing my velocity right beyond it?” While we may be perfectly justified in considering those who still desperately cling to classic Newtonian physics as wrong, it would be folly to answer a student’s confusion by exclaiming outrage that he or she could give credit to such a faulty notion and banning any further mention of Newton and his obsolete laws.

Yet that is exactly what is done with the teaching of evolution today.

It’s not that evolutionary theory isn’t proven or true — it’s that it’s not convincing anyone who doesn’t already believe in it (the American creationist majority). Biology courses, at least in the teaching of evolution, are failing their goal as science classes: to teach students the science, and affirm its validity. Students (and, as any parent knows, teenagers in particular) are only turned off when notions THAT make no sense are forced upon them. They don’t learn what they don’t care to believe. This, at the critical entry level of freshman biology, has the dangerous potential of turning students off to science; it is the superiority complex of science (however valid) over religion, forcibly hammered in, that turns students away and has created the general dismissal of science and fear of technology that pervades so many adults today.

So yes, teach the controversy. It is, in the end better — and necessary — for science.

My essay is a fish.

2006-01-19T18:12:00.000-08:00

Before any discussion of conventions in literature, and especially William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, may take place, the term "convention" must be defined. Convention is simply a mode of doing things which has come to be expected, and assumed by default. In literature, we commonly and repeatedly see the use of a typical "Hero's journey", or bildungsroman, or symbolism in the form of representational allegory - they are some of the phenomena of convention because they appear again and again; despite changes in the detail and implementation, and across entirely different books and genres and even languages, their basic nature always remain, and thus their use is the use of convention. What is important to note, however, is that in the world of literature, convention goes both ways; it is as much a descriptor for something used by the author as it a descriptor for something which the audience has come to expect or assume in reading. Thus, literary work becomes unconventional, not simply by the use of unconventional techniques by the author, but by forcing the audience to read and interpret the work in new and untypical ways.

Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, explores an unconventional, multiple-perspective, stream-of-consciousness, unreliable narrative monologue style, which at the outset, seems entirely original. Northrop Frye in “The Singing School”, however, dictates that all literature, regardless of any and all perceived originality, is still rooted in the conventional forms of writing already established in the past. Though it is quite original and innovative, unlike any before it and still a pillar of originality today, Faulkner’s work here is no different – we can readily perceive the literary and stylistic conventions at work in As I Lay Dying. In this case, however, the use of convention does not make the work conventional, but in fact is the very thing on which the “unconventional” nature of the book relies upon. What makes the novel unique is the deliberate use of convention in all of the wrong ways; in this Faulkner creates all of the stock characters, environment, events and action that a reader is thoroughly familiar with, but then plays out each of these parts contrary to what conventional thought has come to expect.

Faulkner's complete contradiction of those expectations thus confronts the reader with this question: Has the conventional notion of this nature really captured the truth? At every step, and at every contemplative point, Faulkner takes the conventional notion and expectation of literary society, and societal mentality itself, and completely rocks it - whether realistic or surrealistic, the sheer plausibility created simply by the existence of thought running contrary to the norm throws the entire philosophy of life into limbo; readers must now come to question whether any of the ideals, any of the preconceptions of human nature and societal nature are indeed true, or whether they are simply machinations taken on faith by repetition throughout the ages.

To do this, Faulkner takes the reader through four distinct states of thought: plot, character, style, and philosophy. These four entities will appear familiar and conventional, because in actuality they encompass all of human consciousness. As Northrop Frye describes in "The Motive for Metaphor":

"We have three levels of the mind now, and a language for each of them... There's the level of consciousness and awareness, where the most important thing is the difference between me and everything else.... We can call it the language of self-expression. Then there's the level of social participation, the working or technological language of teachers and preachers and politicians and advertisers and lawyers and journalists and scientists. We've already called this the language of practical sense. Then there's the level of imagination, which produces the literary language of poems and plays and novels." (Frye 22-23)

Frye's discussion in "The Motive for Metaphor" is a bit limited; his focus is strictly on language, and thus he defines only three states while there are in fact four states of consciousness. Despite this, however, Frye has defined the very makeup of human thought: the consciousness of physical existence; the consciousness of interaction; the transmission of ideas, produced by the imagination, through the creation of fiction; and imagination itself. While the first three are firmly rooted in the physical world and constitute the forms of human expression, imagination is firmly and solely rooted in the mind of the individual, and not a form of expression at all. Imagination is composed of the thoughts reached by conclusion of the thoughtflow from existence, interaction, and transmission of thought.

In all literature, the modes of thought are represented in the general literary devices used to transmit them. Consciousness of physical existence takes the form of plot, wherein the reader realizes what exists - in human thought, it is "What is is, and what is is not?", and in the literary world of a story, it is who is or who is not, what is happening and what is not; the ideas represented here are purely of reality: What is going on, and why? Consciousness of interaction is represented in the characters which populate the world of the story, and are subjected to the existences, events, and action of it. Ideas here are taken from the reactions and thoughts and motive of the characters, which we relate to our own experiences in the consciousness of interaction. The analysis of literary style avoids the story altogether; its meaning is derived in the analysis of the motive of the author, specifically questioning "Why is it written this way?". What is missing from most conventional works of literature, however, is imagination. Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is thus wholly in its own class in the world of literature because it brings the reader to consider every notion presented in the book philosophically, and think in the imaginative state of consciousness, challenging the preconceived thoughts, or conventions that already exist.

The reader is taken to the state of his imagination by transcending through each of the four levels of thought, one at a time. Like most all conventional literature, As I Lay Dying contains the three typical literary devices: plot, character, and literary style, and in addition includes the fourth device of philosophy, each of which, when reached, discards the previous level, and forms a new plane of consciousness that renders invalid any notions or conclusions developed previously. The reader's interpretation of the work begins with the basic existences and actions of the plot, progresses to the reactions and thoughts of the characters, then to the motive and meaning of the literary style (not how the characters react or think, but why they are presented in this way), and finally transcends to the philosophical pontifications of nature (in whatever instance) that is brought on by the complete dissolution of the validity of the entrenched conventions. The analysis is a continuous stream of thought for every reader - the reader must fully realize all that there is at one level, before he can realize its nature, and then understand its irrelevance in the realization of the existence of the next plane of thought.

Faulkner's progression for bringing readers to an enlightened state of philosophical indefinite is quite unique in the world of literature. It is not, however, unconventional in the domain of human reasoning, and its roots can be seen in the exact inverse of the developmental flow of the arts: the developmental flow of science. As Northrop Frye elaborates in "The Motive for Metaphor":

"On this basis, perhaps, we can distinguish the arts from the sciences. Science begins with the world we have to live in, accepting its data and trying to explain its laws. From there it moves toward the imagination: it becomes a mental construct, a model of a possible way of interpreting experience... Art, on the other hand, begins with the world we construct, not the world we see. It starts with the imagination, and then works toward ordinary experience: that is, it tries to make itself as convincing and recognizable as it can." (Frye 23)

In conventional literature, or the "arts" as described by Frye here, it is the reader who begins with imagination: all of the thoughts and notions and preconceptions of human and societal nature already fill in the mind of the reader. The conventional story thus aims to provides a realistic world, a setting of characters, environs, events and action, which the reader then attempts to rationalize; analyzing cause and effect, speculating motive, interpreting significance of acts, and finding overall meaning or allegory and its application to real world life and society, are all staples of the typical literary analysis done by scholars and doled out by high school teachers every day. The difference between this typical story, and the original work in As I Lay Dying, is the relation of the work to imagination: whereas the typical work will take the conventions of imagination already existent in the mind of the reader, and apply those thoughts in analyzing the plot and characters and literary style of the story, much as the developmental flow of the arts, Faulkner's work begins with the reality at hand - the plot and characters of the story - and from there the reader builds and creates and defines and entirely new philosophy in his imagination, one that is different from the existing imagination based on conventions, but is instead a new imagination based on the philosophy concluded from the plot, characters, and literary style. The intention of Faulkner, and this unique progression of thought for the reader - from plot to characters to literary style to philosophy - runs exactly converse to the standard development of literature, but parallels the modern development of science, and the genesis of human consciousness, and it is this trait about the novel's form that is essential to reaching the philosophical stage of literature.

This "genesis of human consciousness" is detailed by Frye in "The Motive for Metaphor", where he proposes a hypothetical stranding on an uninhabited island. In this situation, as was the situation at the very first genesis of human, or is the situation at birth of every individual human, there are no preexisting conventions in place, at any of the four states of thought, and most importantly no preconceived notions in the imaginative state. Thus, human consciousness must be built up, first in the realization of physical existence, secondly in the interaction between individual and environment, thirdly in the transmission of thought, and fourthly in the development of the imagination. It is in this way that human imagination naturally develops, and it is only in this way that human imagination may develop free from the influence or restrictions of convention.

The natural development of the genesis of human consciousness is why most all conventional literature fails to prompt readers to consciously tap into their imagination. All readers necessarily have gone through a certain amount of education, and a certain amount of life to become literate enough to read and comprehend the work. As such, all readers undoubtedly have some amount of convention already instilled into their thought; their interpretation of the work is thus not of the natural human mind but interpreted through the lens of convention taken from society or life or education. For Faulkner to prompt readers to tap into their imagination, As I Lay Dying had to remove the crutches of convention which had allowed readers to interpret the plot, characters, and literary style with those reading conventions preexisting in their minds, and thus allow for the developmental flow of modern science/the genesis of human consciousness, which allows the individual to reach and consider the book within their imagination.

Paradoxically, in As I Lay Dying the crutches of conventional reading are removed from the reader by the deliberate use of convention. Faulkner begins by presenting the story as any other – the conventional and descriptive, dry narration of Darl Bundren in the first chapter lulls the reader into reading conventionally, analyzing at the existential state of consciousness of the plot – what is and what is happening. The introduction of the more lively Cora and opinionated Jewel in the next few chapters provide what appears to the reader as conventional character interaction and reaction to events. Despite the unusual multiple-perspective narrative style, the writing is still very much in a conventional form, readily digested by a conventional audience.

It is with Dewey Dell’s first narrative (p. 26) that Faulkner first introduces some confusion for the conventional reader. The chapter, or at least the initial part of it, breaks away completely from the fairly linear timeline and flow of the rest of the narrative thus far, which has focused on Addie Bundren’s impending death and Darl and Jewel’s upcoming trip to town. Instead, Dewey Dell begins discussing a promiscuous encounter she has had in the past, one that not only takes the narrative into a separate timeline, but also seems irrelevant from the main focus of the narratives thus far. It is in the beginning of this chapter that the reader first becomes confused (however slightly) with the direction and meaning of the book; in the conventional analysis of plot and character, the majority of Dewey Dell’s chapter describes nothing of the happenings of the plot, and represents nothing at all of her feelings toward Addie Bundren’s impending death.

As the story continues to progress, a style of narrative similar to Dewey Dell’s first chapter becomes more and more pronounced – subsequent chapters often bear no apparent relevance to the central story, while a very obvious and noticeable void is left in both descriptions of the plot and the characters actions and feelings. The most curious (for the reader) and most manifest presence of this trend is in the narrative of Darl Bundren, the novel’s most represented character. Beginning in the first chapter, he is descriptive, methodical, and dry – and thus the reader accepts him as he would the standard objective narrator in any other conventional novel. As the story progresses, however, Darl’s narrative becomes more and more bizarre, and runs away from the factual description introduced in the first chapter (although the audience still reads him that way). In just his second chapter, Darl breaks off from his normally dry style, and speaks of the actions of Jewel and Jewel’s horse, describing how “… Jewel is enclosed by a glittering maze of hooves as by an illusion of wings… they stand in rigid terrific hiatus… He flows upward in a stooping swirl like the lash of a whip…” (Faulkner 12-13) in an embellished and vivacious fashion. Like Jewel in the barn, Darl also describes the death of Addie Bundren (p. 47-52), despite not physically being present at the scene. The realistic impossibility of Darl’s knowledge and descriptions of both scenes entails a surrealistic nature into Darl’s narrative – in either case he is no longer a narrator of the realistic plot, but a narrator of his own imagination. In subsequent chapters, sections of Darl’s narrative seem completely out of place; he interjects seemingly nonsensical remarks such as “It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That’s how the world is going to end.” (Faulkner 39) which bear no apparent relevance to the scene at hand. He also begins omitting key parts of the plot; the entire trip that causes Darl and Jewel to be away during the death of Addie Bundren is barely represented in short sections going to and coming from the destination, and no reason is ever explained for the trip, nor is there from Darl anything but a frantic and wild chapter rescuing the animals while Mr. Gillespie’s barn is on fire – we only find out later, from Cash, that it was Darl who was the one who burned it down. Towards the end, entire narratives seem random and out of place; in Darl’s heated confrontation with Jewel about his father (p. 212-213), the narrative bursts in the middle between relatively calm scenes in which Vardaman wonders about the buzzards – the chapter lacks any context whatsoever, and seemingly comes out of nowhere; it could fit in as much at that point in the story as any other point, or could be a quasi-reality dream sequence altogether. Darl’s final chapter, in which he appears raving mad, is the final, and complete, dissolution of the objective narrator for the reader. While there have been numerous signs thus far hinting that the objectivity of Darl’s narration may not be as it seems, it is only here that his credibility is completely destroyed, and along with it, all interpretations of the audience based on the conventional reading of Darl’s character as the factual narrator.

As much as Darl’s narration is interpreted by conventional readers as a factual and objective description of the plot, most all of the other characters, and specifically those of the Bundren family, are taken initially by the reader as lenses through which character may be analyzed, partly because of their more subjective tones, and partly because the role of objective narrator has already been filled by Darl from the first chapter, and in the eyes of the conventional reader there may only be one. In this mindset of interpretation, still, as with Darl, rooted conventionally in believing the characters to be faithful descriptors of character, the reader is likewise misled into taking all that the characters say as the factual reality. For example, from almost every character’s description of Jewel, and especially Cora Tull’s, it would seem as if he was brash and independent, with a wild disregard for anyone else. In his single narrative, however, we find this to be only almost true; Jewel is reckless and acts without consideration, except that he does in fact care deeply for his mother Addie, perhaps more so than any other character, and perhaps exclusively so – no other character is as explicitly concerned with Addie as Jewel is in his one narrative. Similarly, the picture Anse Bundren paints of himself in his first chapter (p. 35-38) is that of a downtrodden and luckless man to be pitied, although it is quite obvious to the reader that Anse is in fact only self-centered and self-pitiful, and thus none of his narration can trusted. Other characters, such as Dewey Dell or Vardaman, narrate so frantically and in such a random and nonsensical fashion that the conventional reader can not rely on them or derive any meaning from their narration in any sense. In the line, “I got shut up in the crib the new door it was too heavy for me it went shut I couldn’t breathe because the rat was breathing up all the air.” (Faulkner 65) by Vardaman, the conventional reader is left to sort through the mish-mash of words and wonder the significance of the crib or the door or the rat, all of which are out of context in the chapter. Under a conventional interpretation, the line, and much of the rest of the book, makes no sense whatsoever.

By the end of the novel, the reader is thus brought to this conclusion: the narrators are not reliable in the ways the audience would reasonably and conventionally expect them to be. Taken at face value, Darl is not a faithful descriptor of the events of the plot – gaping holes are left in the events of the story; some descriptions are surreal, realistically impossible, and embellished; and by the end of the story Darl completely shatters the reader’s expectation of him as a dependable narrator when he falls into apparent madness. Similarly, taken at face value none of the other characters are true descriptors of the characters feelings, as a conventional reader would expect from the first person view (and subjective tone) – indeed, what they narrate is oftentimes not what they truly feel, what they claim is oftentimes not what is reality, and sometimes what they narrate is nonsensical to the point where no meaning may be derived. The reader now realizes that every character in the entire book has been an unreliable narrator, shattering the conceptions of plot and character established in the first reading in which the reader had read Darl (and a few others) as factual descriptors of the plot, and the other characters as genuine lenses into their personalities and motives.

In this way, Faulkner brings the reader to transcend the conventional interpretations of plot and character (existence and interaction, in the human consciousness). The failure with many readers, and the cause of their frustrations with the book, is their failure to appreciate the narrative style purely as the stream-of-consciousness of each character. Reading Darl and any of the other characters in a conventional fashion makes no sense at all; they are too inconsistent in their descriptions, attitudes, and style to function appropriately as characters telling a story. The reader’s use of conventional analysis is dispelled upon their realization that this perspective is leading them to nonsensical and contradictory conclusions, and only after it is cast off may the reader realize the streams-of-consciousness that the narratives actually are, and read from As I Lay Dying strictly as a realistic representation of the thoughts of characters as the story happens, and nothing more.

Once this realization occurs, the entire story – and the perspectives of each of the characters – makes much more sense. Darl is no longer forcibly placed into the role of sole narrator of the plot, but is now simply another Bundren coping with the death of his mother. Readers no longer attempt to make sense of the frantic and wild narratives of Dewey Dell or Vardaman, but take them as representative of the frantic and wild state of minds of the characters in the aftermath of their mother’s death, among other problems.

It is only after the transcension of the conventional interpretations of plot and character, and finally understanding what the plot is, and who the characters are, that the reader may then proceed to analyze the book literarily, interpreting the style and literary devices of the book themselves – much like in the genesis of human consciousness, in which consciousnesses of existence and interaction must be attained before the transmission of ideas may be considered. Whilst no different from many conventional books, what makes As I Lay Dying special, in following the genesis of human consciousness and the path to the imagination, is that the conventions in the reader’s mind must be dispelled before the plot and characters can be truly understood – unlike other books in which plot and character elements are readily digested using conventional forms of reading and interpretation.

As with plot and character, at the literary level the reader is once again confronted with what appear to be conventional elements and style. For example, the diction used frequently by Vardaman and Dewey Dell:

Vardaman

“Because I am a country boy because boys in town. Bicycles. Why do flour and sugar and coffee cost so much when he is a country boy… God made me. I did not said to God to made me in the country. If He can make the train, why cant He make them all in the town because flour and sugar and coffee.” (Faulkner 66)

Dewey Dell

“The first time me and Lafe picked on down the row. Pa dassent sweat because he will catch his death from the sickness so everybody that comes to help us… And Cash like sawing the long hot sad yellow days up into the planks and nailing them to something.” (Faulkner 26)

The gibberish which the reader at first attributes to an uneducated Southern dialect, is in fact just that – gibberish, or at the very least, an excess of ideas which could be succinctly presented in only a few words. Much in the same vein, Faulkner makes liberal use of italics – in one of Darl’s chapters (p. 180-183), every line involving Jewel is italicized, composing not just words but lines and entire paragraphs, and little meaning may be derived from each individual use. In both cases, Faulkner uses a common literary device – regional dialect and italic emphasis – but does not employ it in a way familiar to readers, nor employs it in a way which contributes to the book; the dialect does nothing but add words and confusion, and the ubiquity of italics, like students highlighting textbook pages, renders the emphasis meaningless.

The narratives of almost every character are filled with out-of-place and nonsensical interjections. While by now the reader has come to expect this as the stream-of-consciousness of the character, the conventional literary reader is still coaxed by convention to find deeper meaning in the choice by the writer to place that particular line at that particular point in the book. Addie Bundren’s last words, “Cash, you Cash!” are puzzling, and as we progress into the book the lack of any sincere relationship between Cash and Addie (as opposed to Darl or Jewel) renders her last words insignificant and trivial. Perhaps the greatest example, however, and one of the most famous lines in the book is Vardaman’s one-line chapter:

“My mother is a fish.” (Faulkner 84)

The singling out of the line, and its presentation as its own entire page and chapter conveys a monolithic tone to the line, as if it were deeply revelatory, and somehow contained in it the essence of the entire book. In this, the conventional literary reader is trained to find meaning, signifigance, and symbolism. All the while, the quote, in itself, means nothing – it is simply demonstrative of Vardaman’s simplistic mind, and his crude equation of his mother to the fish for the reason that both are dead.

Perhaps most misleading – and most shocking – of all to the audience, however, is the story’s overall form, which heavily employs, but makes ironic twists to, conventional story and character structures. The arc of As I Lay Dying’s plot most closely resembles that of the hero’s journey tragedy: the righteous but tragically-flawed hero embarks on a noble quest, overcoming obstacles and conflict, to ultimately triumph, only to be led to downfall by the intrinsic and still-present tragic flaw. The ensemble of “protagonists” in As I Lay Dying embark on the quest to bury their deceased mother in her desired resting place, and surmount natural catastrophes and internal conflict to achieve it, following the typical fashion of the hero’s journey. What is unconventional, and ironic to the audience, is the final fate for all of the characters.

Cash, Darl, and Jewel are arguably the most intrinsically “good” characters. Each one, with varying degrees of expression, care about their mother, and is concerned with the completion of the journey to achieve its supposed goal: to let Addie Bundren rest in peace. Yet, despite their genuine nature, each one meets with a tragic end: Cash loses his leg, Darl is sent away to an insane asylum, and Jewel’s treasured horse is traded away.

Dewey Dell most often plays the role of the “damsel in distress”. She constantly worries over her pregnancy, and desperately seeks help, mentally pleading, “He could do so much for me if he just would.” to the doctor Peabody over and over again. Yet, contrary to literary convention, the “damsel in distress” is not saved in this story; instead she is coerced into a sexual favor by the quack pharmacist MacGowan, has the money for her abortion taken by Anse, and by story’s end is left still pregnant, and still without the father Lafe.

Vardaman, the youngest of the Bundren children, is the typical “innocent mind”; as a child he is supposed to be free from the taint of corruption, evil, and sin, and his mind is conventionally the purest of all humans’. Yet even a cursory glance at any of Vardaman’s narratives show a frantic and scared state of mind; Vardaman is continually devastated by his mother’s death throughout the novel, and is further traumatized as Darl becomes insane and is sent away to Jackson, as evidenced by his frantic last narrative in which he cries out for his brother. The glaring similarities between Darl’s last narrative (p. 253-254), in which he is “crazy”, and the style of Vardaman’s narratives throughout the story indicate that Vardaman’s continuous state of mind may be much like the insanity Darl experiences at the end. Despite being the prototypical pure child’s mind, Vardaman’s thoughts are scattered and random, and do not resemble a pure and clear consciousness in any sense.

Ironically, it is Anse Bundren, clearly the most flawed character of all, and the closest thing to an “antagonist” in the story, who is the only profiteer from the journey. Anse is self-centered and completely unaffected; upon the tragic death of his wife, which deeply resonates with all of the other family members, his only remark was “Now I can get them teeth.” (Faulkner 52) and to order Cash to finish up the coffin so that the journey can start. He is also deeply hypocritical, claiming that he never wants to be “beholden to no man”, yet relying on the help of others for the entirety of his life, and especially on the journey: he asks Vernon Tull to contribute his mule to a plainly doomed journey across the flooded river, stays over in several barns all along the way, trades away Jewel’s horse, and even needs to borrows a shovel at the end to bury his wife. Yet, despite all his flaws, he, unlike any of the other Bundrens, emerges from the journey not only unscathed, but better off than when the journey began, with the set of false teeth he has always wanted, and a new wife.

The very last line of the novel, “Meet Mrs Bundren” is a shocking twist, as Anse Bundren introduces his new wife, just moments after he has buried his old one. The line serves two purposes, both of which completely shake the conventional reading and interpretations of the book’s literary devices. Most readily perceived, Anse’s abrupt marriage is almost comical in that it renders the entire journey and story meaningless. Each of the Bundren children (with the exception of perhaps Dewey Dell) has strove to complete the journey, both so that their mother may rest in peace, and also so that they may bury that chapter of their lives, and move on. In pursuit of that, each of the children suffers some loss catastrophic loss – Cash loses his leg, Darl his sanity, Jewel his horse, Dewey Dell her chance to be rid of the baby, and Vardaman his innocence – only to have Anse reopen an entirely new chapter by remarrying, rendering his previous wife, and thus the journey to bury her, inconsequential to the lives of the Bundren.

Beyond this, however, the last line, representing the success of Anse, throws into disarray all conceptions that the audience has of good and evil, and right and wrong. A theme pronounced in almost all of literature is the ultimate triumph of good over evil, and it is this conventional message which readers have come to expect from all literature. Yet all of the characters, their nature and their ultimate outcomes, act in direct defiance of the conventional good/evil conflict. All of the good (Cash, Darl, Jewel, Vardaman) come to tragic downfalls, all of the innocent (Dewey Dell, simply as female) are taken advantage of, and it is the selfish and evil (Anse, Whitfield, MacGowan) who emerge as victors. Characters outside of the main Bundren family echo this same contradiction of good/evil literary convention; the preacher Whitfield, who would conventionally be expected to be pious and righteous, is revealed to be an adulterer, and takes advantage of Addie’s death as a sign from god that “He is merciful; He will accept the will for the deed” (Faulkner 179), allowing him to shirk his duty to reveal the truth and his sin. Addie, similarly, defies the convention of a caring matriarch, and reveals that she in fact, has deeply resented her children, for spite of Anse.

The sum effect of all these conventions – the archetypal stock characters, traditional hero’s journey and tragedy – used in ironic and twisted ways unfamiliar to the reader, is to completely dispel any conventions which the reader bears in mind. By the sheer existence in this book of good characters that don’t succeed, bad characters that do, and archetypal characters that don’t act accordingly, each of those conventional literary notions is shown as false, or rather, not necessarily true. In this, the reader transcends the level of literary convention, of the transmission of idea, and enters into an interpretation purely of the imagination.

J. Peder Zane, however inadvertently, hints at the true nature of Faulkner’s writing in As I Lay Dying in his essay “William Faulkner’s Literary Legacy”: “He challenged convention, suggesting that society and culture not only shape, but misshape people, preventing them from discovering their true nature and happiness.” (Zane). Free from the conventional interpretations of plot, character, and literary style, the reader is now enabled to develop an interpretation and conclusion in the imagination, based solely on their readings of the plot, character, and style, and the redevelopment of the consciousness of existence, interaction, and communication of idea forced by Faulkner’s writing. Having done this, then the world created by Faulkner becomes reality for the audience, and the reader comes to this conclusion in the imagination: as in the world of As I Lay Dying, the real world is nothing like the world typically presented by literature; good nature does not always lead to success, and self-consideration does in fact bring success; those in peril are not always saved, and the supposedly innocent and pure mind of a child are oftentimes muddled and confused, even more so than adults. Addie Bundren’s lone narrative describes the entire essence of the novel. To her, “people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words, too.” (Faulkner 176), resonating the book’s sentiment that what society presents, in words used to define the facets of human emotions and human natures and concepts, is nothing but words which do not, and can never, truly capture their meaning and essence, instead falsely ascribing them to the definition of the word. Taken together, Faulkner’s novel is that of ultimate questioning and cynicism; it dispels the cheery and cliché statements of conventional literature, and in its place rebuilds a world that is bleak, with no sense of the universal code of ethics or righteousness readers are conventionally used to, but which is in fact a more realistic picture of life than literature most often paints.

Bibliography

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. New York: Vintage Books, 1930.

Frye, Northtrop. The Educated Imagination. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964.

Zane, J. Peder. “William Faulkner's Literary Legacy”, 1997

Hot Fuss: Physics Girl and Ipanema Kill a Whale, and Have a Talk About It

2005-11-19T21:18:00.000-08:00

So where did today take me? Strange places. My life is Under the Gun. Either you or me, just pull the trigger already. Let me wake up, and prove that it's all been a dream.

Chapter 1: A Date for Winter Prom, and a Midnight Show Tonight

So, began the day, heart set on posing that question. Not so much heart, I suppose. Mind set, with its swirling levels of serotonin and glee. It was not a choice of heart, not to-day, at least. A simple strove up during the 1st-2nd period passing, and an oh-so-simple question. A question which had no strings attached, in the slightest - a yes or no, and life would go on. It was the best of times, the simplest of times, the age of wisdom, without any of that other baggage that so often accompanies these high school things.

Chapter 2: "Can I change your mind?"

And all 'twas well. After a delightful segment of Stand and Derive, I got my bags ready for that wondrous trip down that hallway. Ha, but free will is nothing in the face of chance and fate. As I am about to leave, the Girl from Ipanema happens to apparition herself before me. She's an old flame, and nothing more. Happy Birthday? What a surprise. Especially considering my birthday is in January. But, I know how these things are - we get our information where we can, and in the transfer, from mouth to mouth, countenance to countenance, sex to the other sex, we often lose something, or all meaning, in the translation. So, I wasn't tied up so much in that regard, although it was the sole point that most people focused on, and I admit it was rather amusing and makes for great yarn, at the very least.

But - Happy Birthday? Completely out of the blue. After 10 months of her obliviousness, after 3 weeks of my own ignorance, she comes to me, an adorable and fairly personal gift in tow. And she does this, and leaves me to wonder what it all means, in all my wild exasperation and surprise. No time now to visit that 2nd period class, nor would I have, in all my bewilderment at this (pleasant?) surprise.

Chapter 3: The Past Tense: Jenny was a Friend of Mine

This left me, in an utter bind. Here was a gift. An obviously thought-out and neatly packaged one. For a birthday that didn't exist. Do any of those three things mean anything? From one viewpoint, no. None of it did - a simple mistake, and a gesture that'd be done for anyone else anyway. On the other side of things, we had wild theories from everyone, all inclined to the belief that some long overdue relationship was finally going to happen. I tend to accept the former, because, as surprising as it was, it was, after all, characteristic of her, and in the face of everything else that'd been done, everything else that'd been said, and all that had not been said, it became more and more, as it channeled through my thought process, of just another chance occurrence by fate that is read too deeply from the perspective of free will.

After all, nothing had been said for the past several weeks. In all honesty, I do not believe that a single word was uttered between us for three weeks, until today. And she seemed... aware of that, at least. But it perplexes me, in that it goes from no social contact at all, to hey happy birthday, here's something which I've put thought into and planned out. And then again, considering all of that, it seems more likely... obligatory and/or happenstance, that'd she'd return the gesture and give me something for my supposed birthday. I didn't want to completely disregard it, but at the same time I didn't want to believe it to be her subtle way of hinting at something more.

Alas, despite all rationale, your hopes have a habit of getting the better side of you. And so, it was time I decided. Time to get it out there, and say it, tell her, once and for all, for better or worse.

And where was Physics Girl in all of this? She was forgotten and shuffled aside, at least for the meantime. There are friendly Winter Prom dates, and then there are those who you once thought to be the love of your life, back again.

Chapter 4: While Everyone's Lost, the Battle is Won, with All These Things That She's Done - What Things?

And in all respects, it was a repeat of last month, two months, 5 months, 10 months, and every month hence. The same old story, which I think best summed up with this excerpt from six months ago.

http://www.xanga.com/TejasTheory/259542328/item.html

So there is the lesson of the day for tampering expectations and shooting lower than the moon (like a low-orbital satellite or falling Mir debris or something). So I guess as a few people noticed today I've been pretty ecstatic all weekend and 1/2 period today. So I'm there 3rd period, and she walks in...

I'm playing this absolutely beautiful scene in my mind, for a FilmFlask shot, where a girl walks into a room and strides right past a guy, and simultaneously there's a semi-transparent image of the same girl who walks to him, sticks her arm into his chest, and rips out his heart, and then kind of just smiles and watches - not a sadistic one, just a sweet, slightly naive one - as it ebbs into this sickly black and the screen pans away.

She leaves abruptly, as she always does, following 2nd period. Having left my tripod in Mr. Nghe's room, a swing by that hallway to pick it up first, and arrive at third period...

Only to find that she is, once again, sitting on the other side of the classroom.

Before I get into the how and why, I think I need to explain the situation that's been going on, as it's a strange occurrence that only I and probably Josiah have really noticed.

You see, this Girl from Ipanema, sits next to me. It's like as if, for a single moment in the long, arduous day, the British Isles juxtapose themselves on the Brasilian border. And things are either great, or typical, when it turns out that way. But, every once in a while, for reasons that still seem inexplicable, she moves all the way to sit on the other side of the room. The first time it happened, I thought she might have been mad at me, and I was wondering what I had said or done wrong preceding 3rd period, to precipitate her moving across the room. But yet, on the next day, she had moved back to her seat next to mine, and we casually resumed a normal conversation and relationship (this was back in the time when we were still talking). However, this odd tendency started become less spontaneous and more regular - every week she'd sit next to me on some days, and on the other side of the room on other days. Maybe she liked the company there. Or just wanted a chance of pace and scenery. In all likelihood, it's some logical explanation like that, but I can't help but feel a pang in my heart every time she leaves to the other side, as if I've just done something wrong to drive her away.

Before I entered third period, I thought it might've been the first time in weeks that things would be back to normal, that, maybe the gift was her way of showing a willingness to breach that cold iciness which had enveloped the both of us. And, it was refreshing to think of that, to finally shed this horrible pseudo-hatred that had been festering in my mind, and get back to the way that things were. But there I was in my usual spot, and once again, there she was, separated over a chasm that spanned the entire classroom. How? Why? Of all days, to not sit here, she chooses today. She got through to me, for the first time in weeks, and yet, the next hour, she goes along as if nothing's happened at all, and all of it, ALL OF IT, is back to the way that things have always been. Why? That question leads me to the final awful conclusion that she doesn't care for it, any kind of social relationship or contact, not really, which I've thought and expected all along.

And that FilmFlask scene repeats itself. That violent, bloody throbbing muscle, ripped from me like the fluttering mastflag of Tashtego. Fourth period was an exact repeat of last year's scene. Raise my hand to wave, get the first "Hey-" half-syllable out, and yet she passes, straight and direct, never turning a glancing look or acknowledgement in the slightest. Afterschool today, oh god, afterschool today. I had still planned to get it all out, and yet she skips out on Recycling completely (apparently to watch Harry Potter). It was as if, she had achieved her aim, and her only aim, to deliver the gift, and after it was done, her mind drifted straight away to anything else but that. No, she really didn't care to talk to me at all today, outside of those few brief instances. And, no, she doesn't really care so much if I were to ignore her the rest of my life (as had been happening) - she's OK with that because it is hardly a significant part enough of her life to affect her.

A nice, thought-out message she wrote. For all the good that words are, it might as well have been left blank. I'm tired of words, especially the hollow kind. Life is defined by all these things you've done, not the ideas and ideals that are nothing but expoused.

Chapter 5: Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll Queen

And so, desolation. More than anything, the pursuit of a romantic relationship envelops you, and in the process isolates you from the rest of the world. Your life, becomes that person, and you live in the daily social interactions between the two of you. And, in raising my hopes up, all the way to that level (in just a short two hours), the fact that she was most certainly gone, reverberated through my heart, and left a void there that was unfillable by any other person.

And so, despair is drowned in work, as so often is the first resort. Except, solo photography, without any real sense of direction or purpose, is hardly as fulfilling as something like... journalism. An awkward lunch, spent walking around trying to find shots for the website, all the while trying to pick up the pieces ripped apart by such raised hope and such oblivion, in such a short span of time.

I did happen to see Ipanema during the International Foods Day, manning her booth under the shadowed wall of the gym building. And, all of the same, a few grunts of acknowledgement, and it was back into both of our respective, closed-off worlds. Maybe it was because I was too busy snapping away photos for the school website, or maybe it was because she was too busy managing food sales. Maybe it was just the way she is. Maybe it was just the way I am.

But yet, I was busy snapping away virtually the entire lunch period. And Tiffany found time to chat and walk around. Helen found time to chat and walk around. Obviously, things are fundamentally wrong in this relationship (or seeming lack thereof), but with each passing day I lose hope that they can ever be reconciled between the two of us.

The velvet sun shone in all its brightness on the west side, and here I was, under the shadows of the eastern wall. And from the other side of courtyard, across the throngs of people, the sea of purgatory, there she was. Physics girl waved, was beckoning me over, smiling like she meant it.

Chapter 6: "Promise me she's not your world, because Andy you're a star, in nobody's eyes but mine."

And for the first time in the day, things were nice. Sitting by her booth, chatting as the crowds and hoopla of IFD waned and died down.

She's reliable as she used to be. The night of the play, so many nights of the go. It was Guys and Dolls, and I'd been more or less stood up at the last minute by a friend. And that night, so disparate and lonely, it was she, the Girl from Ipanema, who came up to me and said hi, stayed for awhile and chatted. And that night, it made all the difference, just from the fact that there was someone there to converse with, someone there at all. But she never does that anymore. She's never there anymore. Last year, she was this rock that I could depend on, that would be there every time, and I was never lonely. But now, she's unpredictable and inconsistent as I am. And today, Physics girl, was everything she used to be. She was, once again, the savior at that time of despair.

So, lunch was made fun again, and the day was salvaged, by that simple gesture which had trumped everything else that had happened up to that point. I actually don't know, how this all came about. And I'm still not even sure, what kind of romantic relationship, I'd really want, beyond a simple date for Winter Prom. Yes, she's intelligent, possibly more so than any other girl I've met (then again, I really don't have enough classes with her to make a judgement like that), but more importantly, I'm at a comfort level that I really never was at before. I had, no apprehensions today at lunch, and I, in full confidence, think that I wouldn't have had any apprehensions during 1st-2nd passing period today. It is, thus far, the most casual of relationships, absolutely like any other friend, except there is that slightest hint of attraction present.

At times, it seems perfect. Today at lunch was perfect. Without all the baggage and investment of a real relationship, all the fun and lightness of a casual one, and not being weighed and bludgeoned to death with expectations that rise and fall with every new period of the day.

But despite it all, I didn't ask. That other gesture lingered on my mind. How could I turn my back on her, after all this time, and on the day that she did this for me? Never mind that, for the rest of the day, she had all but ignored me (or we had all but ignored each other). Things in that situation were in an utterly confused state. Her actions today had rocked all the previous presumptions that I had built up and established in my mind, and those concrete conclusions that I had come to, and upon which I had decided to abandon the pursuit, all of a sudden melted back into a mush of ambiguity. She... her... she had precedence over some new person, and it was something I needed to resolve, something I needed to know, before I could ever move on with things.

And so, once again, Physics Girl was forgotten and shuffled to the side. Not that it pained me, nor did it pain her - the beauty of casuality. But how much longer would I hold off the progression of life, trying hopelessly to grasp onto threads from the past?

Chapter 7: Believe me Natalie, this is your last chance to Disco

And so lunch came to an end, as all things do. Opportunities come and go, and these days it seems like I'm blowing them at 5 chances a day. But with her, the Physics girl, it's okay. There isn't any impending urgency to ask now, to have something happen now, or to have something happen at all. Is it really that casual, or has this pseudo-attraction of mine just not progressed to that point yet?

But, the Girl from Ipanema. I had my heart set on telling her today, and dammit I was going to. So, recycling club was to be my last chance to disco. I'd catch up with her after we were done sorting, wouldn't sit idly by as she walked out that door alone, as she does every week.

Perchance, we talked during 6th period Chemistry. Though she sits behind me, it's rare (especially recently) that we ever talk in that class. But, we did today. Not the most in-depth of conversations, and it was still... awkward as before. But it was a step, and it solidified my resolve to do it afterschool.

So, the period ends without much fanfare, and I head off to recycling. She lingers for a bit in the chem room, and I loiter around the hall for a few seconds, waiting for her, before deciding to just head off to the recycling room. It's 2:47. I hang around for a bit, sort of idle as the group leaders mill attendance and try to organize the denizens. It's 2:52. It seems as if about half the usuals are gone. There's Joanna, Edward, Alfred, and Samantha, along with the juniors I don't know, as far as I can tell. It's 2:55. And, I start to get nervous. The minutes tick on, and each passing revolution of the second hand takes me further and further away from those balmy shores. Like a rip tide drawing me out, slowly, yet inescapable, and there's no way to reverse it. I could do nothing but tread idly, helplessly, as the seconds flashed by. It was 2:59. Samuel tells me she might have gone with all the rest to see Harry Potter. It was 3:00. It was 3:01. It was 3:17, the group leaders were shipping out, and she wasn't coming.

I walk out. It was too much to stay in that room and wait around for her to show up, for her to come back, it was killing me. The guy screws up, but as she fades off the horizon he runs after her, whirls her around, holds her close and tells her he loves her, wrong until he makes it right. I run out the front door, and stumble into hell. The sun, sky-red blazing. The hundreds of denizens milling around, in general streaming out those front doors and into the suburban jungle. And not a Brasilian in sight. Heaven wasn't close in a place like this, but this was as close to a cynic's reverie as one could get. The Girl from Ipanema wasn't here, nor was she going to be.

I stumbled back in, desolate and disparate, a scene repeated peta-times in the long history of man. The halls had been evacuated. Those students had gone by now, on with their lives. And those recycling members that had stayed were outdoors, retrieving the bins and getting set to sort. The halls were desolate and disparate, and somewhere in the world, the smallest little violin was playing the Ballad of Valentine in its saddest rendition yet. There was nothing around, not for miles, save myself and the plastered walls, the epoxy floor tiles and the particle board ceiling. I walked on and in.

And to my utmost surprise, there she was. Running around and sorting out the post-IFD mess. Physics girl stands there and waves at me, smiling like she means it.

Chapter 8: Hold me close, and promise me that Everything Will be Alright

She had forgotten her IFD utensils in the room, but alas the teacher was gone. So she was about to head home. But she had time to walk and chat as we strolled over to the parking lot. A Date for Winter Prom, and a Midnight Show Tonight?

So we got to that doorway that leads out towards the portables, the parking lot. Her dad was waiting outside. We lingered there for awhile, and I made up my mind to just ask. A moment of hesitation, as I considered the other side of it and Astrud Gilberto's The Girl from Ipanema played in the background of my mind. And in that moment of hesitation, she had taken those two steps out and now stood on the other side of the door. It was an open door, and nothing separated us apart from 3 feet and an empty metal door frame. But, I couldn't do it, couldn't take that step. To do that would have been to move forward, and put myself out there. To do that would have been to take chase after her, and I couldn't do that. It would have been an end to the era of casuality, and a move to something much deeper, with much more at stake. The lesson's been learned ten times before, and I wasn't about to make her an 11th.

I bid adieu, and she flashed me her smile, and we both parted ways for the weekend.

Chapter 9: Mr. Brightside / Not Mr. Brightside

Where does that leave me now? A state of utter confusion. The brightside of things is the hope derived from those subtle hints and gestures from either the Girl from Ipanema and Physics Girl. The downside of things is the awful ambiguity, and most obvious overinterpretation, of those inherently, and quite truthfully, meaningless things, along with the fact that there are now two.

What happened today? I was ready and set to move on today. And all of a sudden, the past comes back to divert my attention for half a day and then half a moment. And even now, I'm wondering about that past. It's so much older than I can take, and my affection, and apparently hers, well it comes and goes.

Is there room for one more sun? The velvet sun which shines on the west, and the shrifting sun that sets on the east side. There won't be a binary in this system - I'm not one of those guys (or at least, I hope I am not). Both suns have set for the weekend, and the question now is who will be there when day comes again (whenever it comes) this week..

And what if the sunlight never rises? As much as we perceive the phases of the day to move with the motion of the sun, isn't the reality that it is us, the planet, which rotates about the axis? We can sit idly by for us to rotate around to that same position once again. Or, at times we must chase the sun and run the arc length of the planet, to see the star's light again.

But one sets on the East Side, and the other sets on the West. The question is, which way do I run?

Chapter 10: Remember Rio, and get down - the Sun sets on the East side

Sometimes, I wish she was reading all of this. I can be frank here, in a way that will never be possible in real life. All this time, I've spoken about lack of intimacy on any level, and her obliviousness. She is, oblivious to all of it, not only to the fact of this (past?) attraction, but to all the in-and-out turmoil in between. That I've loved her, and hated her, and have shifted back and forth several times in the same day. That after all of this, I still hang and hinge on her every word, and write entire books on the tiny actions and things that she does in the day. And it's so unfair to her. In all of this, her attitude has been a constant, and she trusts me as far as most friends would trust most of their friends. And, unbeknownst to her, I've thought and run through all of these things. Dangerous no, to be obliviously friendly with someone who thinks he hates you? Even more Dangerous no, to be obliviously friendly with someone who thinks he loves you?

In all the awkwardness that's developed, things have gone this way because I missed out on step one: telling her that basic truth which underlies this entire relationship. Is it all too late for that now? It might be. She has lived in the past - her perception of this relationship is how it was back in November of 2004. At the same time, I've lived an entire story of love found, lost, and run afoul, played out an entire relationship and its culmination, in my mind.

Chapter 11: Halo and Wings

The Western-setting sun shines now from the East side. Part of me wonders how long it will take for this to take the same shape as before? I've spoken of all these great things, but quite honestly, have I not felt the same way at every point in life where a new attraction arises?

At the same time, I don't want another Ipanema, not even another Incumbent, nor the countless nicknames given to all those others. She's my Winter Prom date, or at least I'd like her to be, and nothing more than that. 24 hours ago, I would have loved nothing more than to take her out on a date, see a movie, out to Winter Prom, Christmas at Union Square. Cause a scene, like lovers do, on silver screens. It was the dream, once again, to perfection, but just a dream nonetheless. To a large extent, I still do - that dream still exists, as pristine and wondrous as it was before whenever I drift off to wonder about it, but the reality now is muddled. What to make of the Girl from Ipanema, if anything?

Epilogue: Over and in, Last Call for Sin

I like the Physics Girl, for entirely new reasons. Simply, for fun, the person you'd go everywhere with, and share everything with - the romance would be the last part of it, if any existed at all. In my mind it's the most ideal kind of relationship, the kind of thing that fanciful high school dreams are made of, the relationship that I've always wanted, without the elements of relationships that I've never wanted. On the other hand, I've liked the Girl from Ipanema for all of the old reasons. I've never wanted her for a Winter Prom date, never wanted her to be anything, but mine for all time, and for her to feel the same. It sounds an awful lot like the Incumbent was, and it's the most dangerous kind of desire - pure desperation for want of the impossible. But then again, it is the most realistic, and the most genuine kind of want.

The Girl from Ipanema
and Physics Girl.
She's the Sun that sets on the East Side
and the velvet Sun that sets on the West.
I'm On Top
and Under the Gun.

So you decide. Cast your ballots, and we'll make this choice by voter referendum. Surely, I am delusional now. A fun survey, nonetheless eh? I've always wondered what everyone else has thought about all this.

Dove Federalists?

2005-10-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

In his article, “The Late, Great States”, Steve Chapman discusses the notable reversal of policy roles between “conservatives” and “liberals” in regards to the support of states’ rights in the federal system of the U.S. government. In recent years, so-called conservative politicians, and their constituents, who have in the past endorsed a smaller national government and supported the sovereignty of states, have seemingly reversed their position, to support the supreme authority and duties of t he national government, and the exact converse reversal has occurred with so-called liberal politicians and their constituents.

Chapman cites several recent issues, mostly court cases, to support his claim. In recent years, a mostly conservative Congress and executive branch have actually been pushing for solutions and action on a national level, rather than simply through the acts of individual states. On issues such as physician-assisted suicide, same-sex marriage, and medical marijuana, conservatives have often pushed for the national government to take action, such as former Attorney General John Ashcroft suing to stop Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide, on the grounds that it violated federal regulations on controlled substances; or the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution; or the Gonzales v. Raich ruling which banned the use of medical marijuana, on the grounds that interstate commerce allowed the federal government to apply medical marijuana to the restrictions of the Controlled Substances Act. In each of these cases, among many other issues that have been debated recently, many conservatives have chosen to support the supremacy of a national government over state decisions, and have advocated for resolution by national action, rather than that of individual states. At the same time, liberals cling to the states’ rights argument, arguing that each state should have sovereignty in marriage, right-to-die, and medicinal cases, and that national government has no right to interfere.

There are a multitude of causes which could account for this seeming shift in policy. As Chapman correctly describes, perhaps the most obvious factor is the temptation to exercise power. As conservatives have slowly gained conservative majorities in Congress, and elected conservative administrations to the executive branch, the power available at the national level becomes a tool that can be used to achieve conservatives’ goals – a tool much more effective and wide-reaching than simply allowing states and the populace to decide. In the same vein, as liberals have become the minority in the American political body, the argument for states’ rights becomes an effective check against conservatives’ exclusive wielding national power. The same situation was reversed several years ago, with liberals holding a majority, and conservatives holding the minority. In any case, each side tends to cling steadfastly to those powers which serve most effectively to advance their views. The majority has a tendency to exercise national power, because it allows them to advance their views; attempting to pass legislation through individual states would likely encounter stiff dissent from certain localities, a problem that wouldn’t be encountered with a single, swift federal action. The minority, on the other hand, tends to support states’ sovereignty, not because it is a more effective method of advancing legislation, but because it is more realistic; with a minority in Congress and no executive leadership, the chance for legislation passing at the national level is slim, so states’ rights provide the next best thing, in at least advancing that legislation where the localities support it, and protecting that legislation against national infringement by the majority.

In this, it is always the power in majority which retains its core values; they may pass whatever legislation and advance their views in complete accordance with their beliefs. It is the minority, which has no real power, that is then forced into a compromising position where it cannot advance its views as it sees fit; their legislation can only be advanced in localities where it has majority support, and even then, only if it is protected from a national majority opposed to it, either of which might require a compromisation in the legislation itself. The belief, then, in a unitary or confederal system, is completely ambiguous, or apathetic in the intents of many of today’s politicians; the invocation of “states’ rights” or “national supremacy” rarely indicates an actual belief in those principles, but rather their simple use as justification for whatever a politician intends to advance. This is readily proven by the flip-flopping of methods by political groups to suit that which provides the most effectiveness in achieving goals. For example, most liberals who are in support of same-sex marriage argue for it on the basis of equal rights – yet to defend such a principle would necessitate the charge that it is a violation of basic civil right (not marriage itself, but being treated equally), and thus same-sex marriage should be imposed throughout the nation. However, many liberals, as the minority opinion on this issue, cannot hope to pass such a national provision, legislatively or through public opinion, and as such, many liberals, politicians especially, have resorted to simply arguing that it is the right of states to decide, while avoiding the violation of equal treatment. In this, they do not take up states’ rights as a true belief – one cannot believe that the restriction is a civil rights violation, yet simultaneously concede that it is perfectly acceptable for some states to exercise such discrimination – states’ rights are merely used as a justification to protect those localities that do support same-sex marriage. If liberals were to ever gain a majority, conservatives would likely take the same approach – even if they believe same-sex marriage should absolutely not be allowed anywhere in the nation, a minority would concede that it is acceptable for some states, as long as other states’ retained the right to reject it. Thus, conservatives’ belief in national supremacy is by no means concrete nor genuine; they may just as easily endorse states’ rights if the opportunity presents itself as more beneficial and realistic.

Perhaps the best example of strong advocation, yet insincere belief in states’ rights, is the Nullification Crisis, in which Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina claimed his state’s right in nullifying a federal law (the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832) which he believed to be unconstitutional. In such a case, the principal issue is the unconstitutionality of the law, something which, if believed in, can not be allowed to exist anywhere. In nullifying the law solely within South Carolina, Calhoun and the South Carolinian legislature neglected to push for national repeal, allowing a supposedly unconstitutional law to continue application. Thus, the invocation of “states’ rights” to nullify a federal law does not serve as the genuine belief in invalidating it – it is simply a justification used by Calhoun and South Carolina to nullify the law within South Carolina, after the realization that national consensus could not be built to repeal tariffs on issue of unconstitutionality.

What then, of the great debates between state sovereignty and national supremacy? Early in the conception of the nation, it was undoubtedly one of the most debated issues, and to this day remains a source of great controversy. To the dismay of government teachers everywhere, however, the truth is that states’ rights and national supremacy has never been a true issue in and of itself for the American populace. In what times it has been invoked, it has almost always been as a tool to advance some secondary, unrelated position. Those who have fought the hardest on either side of a states’ rights debate, have always been those with an interest vested in the final outcome – not the outcome of the states’ rights validity itself, but the outcome of the issue being debated – same-sex marriage, drug regulation, euthanasia, etc. In the Eysneck Model (horizontal axis, liberal or conservative methodology; vertical axis, authoritarian or libertarian methodology), they are often on the left or right of the spectrum, but always towards the center vertically – they have little or no dedicated belief in governmental power, and so may readily adapt and switch sovereignty arguments to suit their view.

No doubt, there are those who have genuine beliefs in the range and limits of government power – those on the far vertical ends of the Eysneck Model. However, most of the populace tend toward the vertical center, as lack of education restricts the strength of opinion one may have, and those few that do have beliefs in sovereignty rights tend toward the horizontal center. Thus, those who do have opinions on federalism are likely not to have a large vested interest on any particular issue, and the populace is thus influenced more by the demagoguery of the passionate left/right wing extremists. The national opinion and debate then, is focused predominantly on the liberal and conservative aspects of an issue, and little attention at all is ever focused on the actual issue of federalism and state sovereignty.

In discussing any alleged “shift” in “conservative’s” views, or the same with “liberals”, we must define four separate groups in modern American society: socioeconomic liberals, socioeconomic conservatives, political libertarians, and political authoritarians. Socioeconomic liberals and conservatives are well known in the public perception – they are who we generically label as “liberals” or conservatives”, and they are those who have little or no genuine belief invested into federalism. Thus, the role reversals of socioeconomic conservatives and socioeconomic liberals are nothing surprising, and can be expected with the continual shifts in the proportion of political power delegated to each (who is the majority, who is the minority), as Chapman has stated. Political libertarians and authoritarians, on the other hand, have staunch views on the limit of political power, and in our case, views on the limits of national jurisdiction. Political libertarians tend to favor the rights of localities, while authoritarians support the supremacy of national government over that of localities, and these views are concrete. In the context of Chapman’s articles, we may provide labels for each group, with political libertarians as traditional conservatives, and political authoritarians as traditional liberals, but this would be utterly incorrect. While political libertarians genuinely believe in states’ rights, traditional conservatives are only related in that they, as a minority, happened to employ states’ rights as justification for many of their views, many times in the past. In the same vein, we only perceive liberals as political authoritarian because they have so long employed national supremacy as justification for their views, and also the tendency to expand government duties for citizens (which relates to political power, but in the context of federalism, is completely ambiguous as to whether it is the states or national government which has jurisdiction for expanded powers).

Do political libertarians and authoritarians still exist? Quite certainly. Almost all judges serving on federal courts must ponder the question of federalism, and possess not only opinion on such, but impartiality on general socioeconomic conservatism or liberalism. In such cases as United States v. Lopez, United States v. Morrison, and Printz v. United States, the Supreme Court repeatedly struck down common sense laws, such as restrictions on firearms in schools, and violence against women – the reason not being that the laws were unsound, but that they violated the rights of states in determining such laws for their own. Since the mid-90’s, federal courts have ruled against the encroaching power of national government, in favor of state sovereignty. Opinions – and debates – of the balance of federalism certainly exist.

To answer Chapman’s tagline question, “Where have all the federalists gone?”, federalists are still very alive and thriving – mostly in the court system reversing decades of legislation by politicians and a public who have fallaciously employed federalist arguments to advance unrelated goals. “Conservatives”, as he defines them – modern socioeconomic conservatives – certainly have, as Chapman writes, shifted away from states’ rights, to the use of national power – but they have not shifted from an endorsement or protection of states’ rights to national supremacy, so much as they have shifted from an employment of states’ rights to national supremacy as justification of actions. As Chapman and others may wonder what has happened to federalists who may believe in state sovereignty or national supremacy, the truth is that socioeconomic conservatives and liberals – practically the entire populace – have never been federalists in the first place.

AP Courses - mounting burden, declining benefit (SF Chronicle)

2005-06-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

For many high-school juniors and seniors, this school year has been the year of the AP, a nonstop rush of drills, flash cards and night-before cramming. In every advanced-placement class, students devote an immense effort to studying for these tests; they buy prep books, stay excessive hours after school and spend a disproportionate amount of time on AP over their regular classes.

As one of many AP students, I've experienced the madness myself. Perhaps it is part of our nature, as "top-tier" students dedicated to success, but at its core, the work ethic of the majority of AP students represents an unhealthy obsession with the AP test.

The AP tests are nationwide standardized tests administered by the private College Board association. Successfully passing an AP test will count toward college credit and, depending on the college or university, may grant exemptions from certain general-education courses. For many high schools, it represents the highest class level for students taking a particular course.

While preparing for AP tests is not so much of a problem, the issue for almost any AP student is that their focus on passing the test takes precedence over the subject matter of the course. Students spend days and days practicing how to manage their time on the essay prompts, and learning the grading process that AP scorers use, and listening endlessly to the useless "Guessing is good if you can eliminate one answer choice" rubbish. Interest in understanding the actual subject takes a backseat, and worst of all, confined by the College Board-defined AP curriculum, teachers are stripped of the power to direct the AP-crazed students toward actual subject comprehension. School administrators, with their "pass the AP" mandate, are about as inclined to teach the subjects as students are to learn it.

All of the time wasted and knowledge lost in studying for the AP test aside, if a student actually needed nighttime and weekend study sessions, third-party prep books and a specialized class just to pass a test, one must wonder if passing the AP exam really means anything to them anyway. Those who have immersed themselves in this AP trap of test drills and endless study are really fooling themselves into a false sense of security that a score of 3 or 4 or 5 on some AP means that they're "smart," that they can get into a UC campus, that they're ready for UC.

As for teachers, have they blindly accepted this "pass the AP" mantra as simply part of the job description? Any teacher who has ever taught an AP class knows every hour wasted on explaining how AP graders score essays is an hour that could have been used to educate students on something of real substance. Every AP teacher knows that the AP syllabus, mandating what must be taught, restricts the teachers' freedom in what the class can learn. Despite this, teachers seem willing to approach the standard AP formula as simply another quirk in the education system that must somehow be accommodated.

As students, we shouldn't buy into this "failing AP equals Apocalypse" paranoia, this "Oh my God, the AP seems so hard and if I fail I've got no future, I've got to do everything humanly possible to prepare for it!" This is what puts us into a black-or-white, "will this help me on the AP or not?" perspective that distracts us from real education. We don't need AP prep books or daily after-school study sessions, and if any students still feel they do, they need to reassess their ability to handle an AP course.

Teachers, similarly, need to realize that they don't need to gear their classes to training for a test; teaching it like any other non-AP class, they will discover that those students who understand the material will be able to pass it, and others will not, simply because they're either lazy or unable to grasp the subject. Both teachers and the administration need to realize that a student will never fail an AP test for a lack of test preparation.

Maybe the best solution, then, is to completely drop the college credits and the AP test itself, thereby eliminating all the competitive pressure and failure anxieties of today's AP courses. We would return classroom autonomy to the teachers, and, with a de-emphasis on competition and achieving a good score "on paper," the administration, teachers and, most especially, the students can get back to an environment where we're more concerned with learning about a subject, rather than learning how to pass the subject on a test.