1. UW
Update Wednesday Feb. 18
a. Well,
it looks like this is becoming a
weekly thing after all! This week I have less excuse for it, but I’m still
feeling pretty busy.
b. Up
to today:
i. I
had a nice weekend at home, saw a crazy production of Romeo and Juliet where
all the lines were set to music, took a hike with my family, debated morality
with Mom and Dad, hung out with my cousins, played some Frisbee with my
sisters. It was really pleasant.
ii. Returned
to school on Monday evening and watched a really cheesy “sci-fi” (not really)
movie with some Physics classmates (Jia Wen, Camellia who was in my CS section,
and another guy named Alex). Bussed back to the dorm and read for Cows.
iii. Tuesday
morning, decided to keep my sleep schedule reasonable instead of pounding out a
paper for Cows that I didn’t have any inspirations for, which means I need to
do all of the last 3 papers. Went to Cows, where we talked about this really
interesting (long!) article describing the progression of feelings about
animals in England from early medieval times to present day. Class
distinctions, religion, economics, nearly everything is wrapped up in this
discussion of attitudes towards animals. I ate lunch with my “CS students in
Cows” friends in Red Square, did physics hw, then went to Glee Club, where I
still feel like I’m improving very rapidly. I really mastered this one high
section of this barbershop song “Shine On Harvest Moon”. Skipped Salsa, again
in exchange for sleep, did more physics hw and then reading for education.
c. Today
I:
i. went to physics, hung out with Brandon while
reading for education, then went to research where our speaker, a PhD student
from the Information School studying adolescents’ use of technology, talked
about techniques in qualitative research. Most recently, she and colleagues
studied a dataset of 2000 or so comments to a blog post about bullying in HS by
tagging comments to describe basic themes, aggregating these themes into
general patterns, and coming up with hypotheses about the trends these patterns
reflect. Interesting issues with this type of research involve cross-checking
by collaborators to ensure their tags reflect concrete themes that multiple
people would recognize, the art of grouping themes, etc. Very interesting.
ii. I
ran to education class, where we talked about Ravitch’s book (the discussion
was as scattered as the book felt). We talked about our group projects, and
Issa and I were unable to sway anyone to join our exploration of unschooling.
iii. Went
back to dorm, did physics hw, then played basketball at Denny field for about
an hour. Did some 2-on-2, which was very fun, and then some 21.
iv. Grabbed
my Judo gear and headed to dinner. Joined Tyler from Glee Club and some of his
friends, who I soon extrapolated were all members of a Christian fraternity.
v. Headed
to IMA, changed into gear. Learned some more pins, practiced escapes and
defensive positions on the mat. Felt like I was learning quickly.
vi. Talked
briefly with a classmate, Anton, who I think came here recently from France to
do his Math PhD. He told us that tuition for masters’ students and PhD students
was free, provided that they taught, for which they received extra salary
beyond free tuition. Furthermore, the teaching load at the UW was pretty light
compared to other colleges where Anton’s friends were teaching. This sounded
appealing to me—like an alternate, higher-level Teach for America where I also
got to be studying graduate-level stuff.
vii. Returned
to dorm and hung out in the lounge, trying to read and socialize. As always,
this was a challenge, but I managed to finish my reading and get conversations
in with Eleanor, August, Brianna, and Chase.
viii.
Wrote quick notes on my reading, placed a hold
on a John Holt book to read for the unschooling project, wrote this log, and
went to bed.
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