Your list

I have heard several times now that people who write down a list of everything they want to accomplish in life are more likely to do so than people who keep their goals inside their mind. This makes sense to me, as the same rule applies for writing papers — the most effective way to communicate everything you want in the final draft is to write them all down at the beginning, rather than try to remember and organize your thoughts internally. I recently began a “list notebook” which contains everything from lists of things I want to purchase for the apartment long-term to what qualities great professors share. Also included is my “life list” which I just wrote this evening. It’s fairly short but (for me) comprehensive:

Another update post

Sometimes it seems as if I’m in the middle of a soap opera.  Recently, I’ve felt things developing into one of those times.  I’m sure that if I were a gifted writer, I could spin some of this into some entertaining Sedaris-style work.  Unfortunately, I have just enough skill to break it down into manageable chunks.

NY Times: Lacking Credits, Some Students Learn a Shortcut

April 11, 2007
By ELISSA GOOTMAN and SHARONA COUTTS

Dennis Bunyan showed up for his first-semester senior English class at Wadleigh Secondary School in Harlem so rarely that, as he put it, “I basically didn’t attend.”

But despite his sustained absence, Mr. Bunyan got the credit he needed to graduate last June by completing just three essay assignments, which he said took about 10 hours.

“I’m grateful for it, but it also just seems kind of, you know, outrageous,” Mr. Bunyan said. “There’s no way three essays can possibly cover a semester of work.”

Mr. Bunyan was able to graduate through what is known as credit recovery — letting those who lack credits make them up by means other than retaking a class or attending traditional summer school. Although his principal said the makeup assignments were as rigorous as regular course work, Mr. Bunyan’s English teacher, Charan Morris, was so troubled that she boycotted the graduation ceremony, writing in an e-mail message to students that she believed some were “being pushed through the system regardless of whether they have done the work to earn their diploma.”

Throughout the city, an ad hoc system of helping students like Mr. Bunyan over the hump is taking root in public high schools, sometimes over the protests of teachers, who call credit recovery programs a poor substitute for classroom learning and say they ultimately devalue the diploma. In interviews, teachers or principals at more than a dozen schools said the programs ranged from five-day crunch sessions over school breaks, to interactive computer programs culminating in an online test, to independent study packets — and varied in quality.
more

The Project

Hi all,

Angeli invited me to play in y’all’s yard, so here goes.

For a while now, I’ve been throwing around a collection of ideas I think of as the Project (yeah, capital ‘P’). Mostly, the Project rises in my thoughts when I’m asked about my religious affiliation. What follows is a rough, short list of the statements of faith I think of when I think of faith – the beginning of my answer. Each statement on the list could be expanded to an essay, or a book, or a life’s work; I know it’s simplistic, but it’s a start.

The Project

1. Life creates forms.
2. Forms can outlast individual life.
3. Information is more resistant to entropy than matter.
4. The potential information content of the universe is infinite.
5. The heat-death of the universe is coming; what are you doing about it?
6. Sentience creates novel forms
7. Sentience is anti-entropic.
8. The unique potential of sentience lies in the creation of novel forms.
9. The creation of novel forms is dependent on maintenance of existing forms.
10. Destruction of existing forms is entropic.
11. Sacralization of existing forms is entropic.
12. Religion can be entropic.
13. Religion can be anti-entropic.
14. Noise is entropic.
15. Lies are pure noise.
16. Truthful communication is anti-entropic.
17. Communication implies, creates, and requires community.
18. Involuntary restriction of access to information is entropic.
19. Voluntary reduction of noise is anti-entropic.
20. Art is the creation of novel forms, and is therefore sacred.
21. Art is the preservation of existing forms and is therefore sacred.
22. Science is the creation of novel forms and is therefore sacred.
23. Science is the preservation of existing forms and is therefore sacred.
24. The future is sacred.
25. Entropy itself is anti-entropic in that it is essential to life and sentience.
26. A moral code can be derived from these statements.

SAIC

So, I’ve been meaning to summarize my SAIC admissions experience so far.  At first I was concerned about jumping the gun as well as publicly posting some sensitive items.
I met with the head of undergrad admissions (Scott) on Feb. 21.  Ed went along with me to the meeting.  We were in for around an hour.  It really felt like we both “clicked” with Scott.  I rarely get that feeling.  I certainly didn’t expect to click in this situation.  I’ve read that it’s important to walk into this kind of meeting ready for criticism.  It’s stressed that the best impression you can leave is to take it well.  Not only did he not criticize my work, he complimented it.  He said it’s once of the better transfer portfolios he’d seen in his time at the school.  He told me that he was approving my portfolio on the spot, he’d expect me to see merit money of some kind, and I belong there.  After talking about art, conversation moved on to the chans, viral marketing, and Cloverfield.

I had until March 3rd to be accepted into the school (with all of my requirements in, etc) in order to be tossed into the merit pool.  Somehow I made it.  I tried to get as much to the school in electronic form as I could.  I promised that hard copies would follow by mail.  I’ve been assured that I’m in the merit pool.

I’ve gotten my official acceptance letter.  To seal the deal of attending the school, I need to make a non-refundable tuition down payment of $300 by May 1.  Since the amount of money offered to me is the final key to my decision, I am waiting this out as long as I can.  Novy called once of his contacts at the school who assured him that award letters would go out by the end of March.  So, until then, I wait.

Ed has given me permission to feel excited about this.  Really, I’m still pretty apprehensive.  The more I look at the school, the more I think about our meeting with Scott, the more I really want to go.  I like what the school is doing.  It’s still an admired school.  SAIC is trying to keep up with the changing world by embracing technology.  The school isn’t afraid of pissing people off.  I won’t be forced to decide if I’m a painter or a print-maker.  I can make my own path.  I will be trusted to make the appropriate connections between genres and enhance my portfolio.  Ed and I have been following some of the west coast art movement, and I can get an education in Chicago that won’t be afraid of that.

What will I do with all of this (supposing I can make money and school work out)?
I keep thinking about my old dream of illustrating.  My goal was never to be a gallery artist, but I think at this point, with this education, I should be able to expect a few things of myself (shallow, practical, & impractical):

• I will work in series (like a musician working in CDs).
• I will find the amount of commercialism that I feel comfortable with
• I will show my work in galleries, but won’t rely on that (I think that galleries as we know them are a dying idea and there won’t be enough bang for my buck.  I’m more interested in shooting for coverage in High Fructose or Juxtapose magazines)
• I will teach at the university level (This is a very important part of my plan.  I want to work with you both on this.)
• I will work on projects with other people (you guys and other contemporaries)
• I will stay involved with other contemporaries across fields
• I will find a physical home that I feel comfortable with and contribute to the community (even if home is an idea and I’m physically moving often)

This list is only what I can think of now and mostly about career stuff.  More to come.  I would like goals for all of us to touch, overlap, intertwine.  I understand that things change.  It is, however, kind of important that Ed’s goals, my goals, and our goals can coexist.

A personal extracurricular syllabus

This syllabus is meant to express a convergence of the networks of personal interest I maintain. In a broad sense the syllabus represents what I think I need to know in order to accomplish what it is I want to accomplish – but more on that later. I have all of the books that I reference except for Polya’s Solve It! and Ray Jackendoff’s Languages of the Mind: Essays on Mental Representation which are on my list of “someday books.” The books are in order as well as I can figure it now, though I am sure that all of this will change shape and shift as I go.

Math
1.
A. Technical Calculus with Analytic Geometry
B. Understanding Infinity
C. A Vector Space Approach to Geometry
D. Introduction to Partial Differential Equations with Applications
E. Differential Geometry
F. Complex Analysis with Applications

2a.
A. Differential Games
B. Evolutionary Games an Equilibrium Selection
C. Combinatorial Algorithms
D. Information Theory

2b.
A. Matrices and Linear Algebra
B. Modern Algebra

Philosophy

1. 1000 Plateaus
2. Difference and Repetition

Systems/Heuristics

1. Code Complete
2. The Mathematical Approach to Physiological Problems
3. An Experience with Populations and Communities
4. Solve It!
5. Spiral Dynamics

Brain Stuff

1. Accelerated Learning for the 21st Centrury
2. Mind Performance Hacks
3. Flow
4. Lifehacker
5. Speed Math
6. Photoreading

NLP/Linguistics/Semiotics

1. Patterns 2
2. NLP vol 1
3. Changing Belief Systems with NLP
4. Modeling with NLP
5. The Spirit of NLP
6. Semantic Structures
7. Languages of the Mind: Essays on Mental Representation

Whew- well that should be easy. Also, then there are “assignments” which I ought to be adhering to; writing based on what it is that I am studying at the moment, for instance, as well as writing for writing’s sake, that is to say organizing and collecting the various ideas that i get from time to time that I think are work remembering. Not to mention the school work I get from actual school and maintaining a healthy marriage/social life.

And then there are the long-term projects which I would like to complete: My as-yet unnamed prime number inquiry, analyzing a city block both ecologically and semiotically, priming essays and works of fiction to communicate deliberately with both the conscious and unconscious mind.

What I suppose I should start with is a project that integrates what it is that I am currently learning at any given moment and can be easily scaled to match the resources I am able to commit at any given moment. And I am totally willing to take suggestions as that goes. Currently it seems to me that the most easy project is to try an post an entry here as often as possible.