One of my friends recently introduced me to an essay recounting some of the wrongs of our current education system, with regard to Mathematics. A Mathematician’s Lament, by Paul Lockhart, tells of a society that has taken an art form and utterly defiled it. Our beloved “Educational System,” with its standardized tests, set curriculum, and competitive goals, has removed true mathematics from the eduction process altogether, in favor of memorization and regurgitation. Gone are the days when students were challenged to come up with their own solutions to mathematical problems, no longer do students learn why 1 + 1 is equal to 2, or why the area of a triangle is one-half of its base multiplied by its height. Instead, we are told that it “just is,” “it doesn’t matter why, just memorize the formula, you’ll need it for the test.” No wonder students hate math class so much. Read the essay, its worth it.
Peace.
“Lockhart’s Lament” alternate link
So… another school year come and gone… what now?? Summer vacation, of course. Not that this summer vacation is to be anything spectacular, as most of it will be spent trying to earn some cash. Still, some fun is bound to be had, the absence of classes and homework almost guarentee it. It is “vacation” afterall…
Peace.
It’s that time again, isn’t it. And no, I don’t mean Christmas. School is starting, and we all know what that means… Late nights spent procrastinating, early mornings spent making up for it. Life’s a bit different for me this semester though, as I have decided to live on-campus. I commuted to school for my first two semesters, and kinda got burn-out on driving here everyday. I lucked out too, I got a room two days before I was supposed to move in, and it turns out that it’s one of the newly renovated rooms here on campus. It’s like staying in a hotel, albeit not nearly as much fun…
I have yet to meet my room mate officially, he moves in tomorrow morning… We have talked, however, and he seems like a nice-enough guy. I suppose we shall find out.
Classes start on Monday, but my schedule is not nearly as full as it was last semester. I’ve gone from 18 credit hours to 16, and two of my classes are cores. Hopefully this will be a relatively easy semester.
Well, anyway… TF2 is calling me… I must answer…
Peace.
So… you may not believe it (heck I don’t even know if I do…) but I built this. Well, I built the body anyway, and I painted the entire thing, but the neck was purchased (I don’t have the equipment necessary to precisely place all of the frets).
It’s modeled after a ‘59 Gibson Les Paul, and took me about three weeks to complete. It is currently on display at the Huron County Fair, where it will remain until Sunday. It recieved a “First Award” and also won “Most Creative”, as an advanced woodworking project for 4-H.
(For those of you who are dial-up users, I apologize for the size of these pictures. I will be downsizing them as soon as possible.)
[Edit] Pictures have been re-sized, and are much smaller now (around 150 kb), so you dial up users shouldn’t have any problems. [/Edit]
Other pictures:
How it looked after I cut out the basic shape, with a scroll saw.
The back, showing the control cavities, before finishing.
After I airbrushed lacquer onto it, but before the hardware.
Close-up of the finished body.
Yikes… 2:00AM already?! …anyway, as you may (or may not) notice, some minor–mainly visual–tweaks are taking place around the site. These will continue to happen as I continue to learn more about PHP and CSS (and more importantly, how they interact). Imagine that, me learning at 2am, on a Fri– I mean Saturday… What is this world coming to??
Once again, if you have any suggestions, leave a comment or shoot an email to layout@weazlrants.com (the seperate email address helps me keep things organized… 
).
Welp… I suppose it’s bed time…
Peace.
