Re: Random Thoughts: The Randoming

[Guest]

I am feeling unexpectedly bad about the backlash I got when I tried to ask the woman of a pair of people arguing in front of me (gist: dude was acting initially cocky and going "we're fucking, you and me. That's it. We're gonna be fucking." and it devolved into him whisper-yelling about how she's hung up over "some fucking asshole and I do so many things for you") if everything was all right. Dunno if I should take it to heart and stop trying, or if I'm just overreacting due to my incredibly conflict-averse nature.

Come to think of it, I don't think any time I've been worried and tried to ask if things were all right/check in on bad-looking situations ever ended up helping. Maybe I really should just stop being a nosy bitch.

[Enail]

Autumnflame, I've never gotten a really negative reaction for doing something like that, but I've quite often felt silly and embarrassed for it. I figure that if I've got reason to be concerned for someone's safety, I'd much rather bug someone/look silly by checking unnecessarily a few times than fail to help someone who needed help once. In any case, sympathy for the bad feelings trying to do a decent thing.

[Guest]

@Werel: I don't know why, but 2/3rds of your image was blacked out when I tried to open the spoiler tags and now that I'm logged in, it won't open at all.

EDIT: Oh, it's working fine now.

Heh, owlturd.com...

---

There was a fight last night between my father, new brother-in-law and sister. Mum stepped in to the conversation, and I escalated things by confronting him. The word 'divorce' was dropped. I suppose this was a long time coming.

Something was off in that moment too. I didn't experience the usual sensation of my balls shrinking into my body. I didn't break down and I'm not feeling deeply mournful today either. Something's changed. Don't know what'll happen from here on out.

[Guest]

Autumnflame, I've never gotten a really negative reaction for doing something like that, but I've quite often felt silly and embarrassed for it. I figure that if I've got reason to be concerned for someone's safety, I'd much rather bug someone/look silly by checking unnecessarily a few times than fail to help someone who needed help once. In any case, sympathy for the bad feelings trying to do a decent thing.

That's what I figured at first, too, but I'm not sure that I've ever helped anything by doing so (though then again, I don't know that I haven't, either). I kind of wonder if the possible good I might do outweighs the possible harm I might be doing, and if I'm arrogant to assume that I can somehow help just by asking naive questions.

But thank you for the sympathy. <3 It's definitely something I'll be thinking about for a bit.

[Guest]

That moment when you see a comment made by 'Ghost Rodgers' (whose profile pic. is of Elliot Rodgers) on a Heston Blumenthal video .

[Guest]

Bi, ESFJ at only a 1% preference over INFP according to the self-assessed MBTI I just did on a lark, both creative and logical/methodical traits in pretty equal amounts, did a program for both sciences and humanities, switch fairly equally between super-feminine and more masculine forms of dressing/acting...

Apparently my life consists of fence-sitting.

[Gman]

So today I had a minor surgery - removal of a plinodal sinus.


Anyone else here had to deal with something similar? The thing that is bothering me the most right now is the fact that - doctors orders - I am to rest at least 14 days.... which means 14 days without dancing. That thought is making me really sad - dancing has become such an integral part of my life that even going 14 days without it is giving me anxiety and kind of depressed

I mean it's not the end of the world... but I have been on this roll recently, of having lots of energy and going out a lot and doing a lot of stuff - and now this happens. I fear that it's going to totally kill my energy and set me back mentally by a lot once I fully recover.

Any tips for dealing with this somehow?

[Guest]

Aw, that sucks, Gman. I didn't have a physical activity that I valued so much when I had surgery, but I was in a rough shape for several months (a month in, just taking a walk up and down the street took me twenty minutes and I had to sleep for several hours afterward). Not gonna lie, it was tough, but it passed eventually - and finally feeling better and being able to actually do stuff felt like the world afterward.

Keeping myself distracted with other things (movies, games - I probably put 60 hours a week or more into Skyrim during that time - books) and not having to worry about being fed (I happened to live with my mum at the time, which turned out to be fortunate) helped a lot, as did whatever minor exercise I could accomplish. How mobile are you? Can you at least take short walks? What about minor upper-body exercises (hand weights and the like)? Does it require bed rest at home, or can you, say, go out to a coffee shop and read, at least get some people around you while you're resting?

I'm not sure if watching dance videos will help or hurt in that time - I could see it going either way, and might be worth trying (but definitely stop if it just makes you ache worse at not being able to dance).

While it might kill your roll and set you back a bit, it might also get you more pumped up to get back into action, after an enforced rest. Either option is possible, so it's not a given that it'll stop you in your tracks. Things always come in cycles, anyway - even if you do find yourself low on energy, chances are if you keep a steady schedule of doing what you can you'll find yourself getting back into the swing of things.

[Conreezy]

Any tips for dealing with this somehow?

I'm a very active athletic person, so I know how antsy you feel when you can't do your usual activity. Once every two months or so, I take an entire week off of training. I do it in order to give my body recovery time and avoid injuring myself, which would put me out of action for much longer.

During that week, I really indulge my curiosities. Do you have some subject or skill you've always wanted to know more about? Recently, I took that week to learn how to sew buttons on my clothes. Lately, that's evolved into reading everything I can about the tailoring of men's clothes. Other times I've taken cooking classes to brush up on that skill. These things make me feel more well-rounded, and the skills are practical.

Autumnflame suggested dance videos, and that's something I do when not physically training. Returning to the theories of my martial arts reminds me of what I should be aiming for when I get back to working out.

Most times, I really dive into home maintenance, deep cleaning spots that get missed or putting up that picture I've always wanted hung, etc. They need to get down, it feels good when they are, and they're very distracting. "Time to lean is time to clean" and all that.

[Raindancing]

I was recently reminded of something that happened in my prior life as a math professor:

I used to do the write your name, major, etc, and an interesting fact about yourself on an index card on the first day of class (sidenote: this is a massive waste of time, especially in a class that's not tiny, and I don't really think that it does anything to make students feel valued as people, which was why I was told to do it when I first started teaching) and have everyone go around and introduce themselves and say their interesting fact.

One time, I had a guy whose "interesting fact" was that he was really into hentai.

That was the last time I ever did that.

[nearly_takuan]

I also am pretty sure that most of us students just rolled our eyes at the "activity" and did not feel more valued as people, whether it was in middle school or university.

It's a tough problem to deal with, though. A lot of people, even kids, maybe especially kids, can pretty easily tell the difference between genuine interest and a display, between individual attention and an assembly-line activity. Most "icebreakers" can easily move into the latter category without considerable efforts to the contrary.

I get the desire, even at times the need to use class activities from a can, because there just isn't enough time in a week to talk one on one with each person and make them feel "valued" while still growing and mastering your field and teaching it to others. Not in a large class. Not when you also have other classes.

It's much more feasible in a smaller school, of course. And/or in upper-division classes, where the students are almost as invested in the subject as you are, and there is a manageable number of them. It's still probably a pain in the ass; I'm so grateful to the professors I've had who did require us to meet them for one-on-one office hours, and some of whom even personalized (a.k.a. optimized via calculus) our grading curves.

[The Wisp]

I also loathed those activities because they really provoked *a lot* of social anxiety in me while not helping me connect with anybody in the class anyway.

[Wondering]

Oh, interesting. I had my students do that back when I taught, but instead of "interesting fact," I had them tell me "anything I might need to know about you." And that's when I got students who would tell me things -- like I would have done had I been the student -- like that they were Type 1 diabetic or pregnant or stuff like that they wanted the teacher to know but didn't necessarily want to announce in class. I didn't require that part, though. If there was nothing they felt I needed to know, they didn't tell me.

I had no idea that was resented by some.

[nearly_takuan]

That form of it seems fine. It's the whole "stand up and tell the class about your hobbies" part that felt like a waste of time at best and occasionally seemed patronizing also.

Especially as sometimes the activity was structured or explained in a way that made it seem like there was something wrong with you if your hobbies were insufficiently interesting (a.k.a. if you had ever felt insecure about your own interests or didn't think of them as hobbies).

So then you sit there thinking, "crap, I know I'm a totally uninteresting person and awful at pubic speaking, and now the rest of the class is going to know, too."

Although, something that does kind of interest me in hindsight is how nobody, not even confessed math nerds, ever listed math (or whatever the class subject was) as a prominent interest of theirs or talked about anything related to that as an "interesting" thing or story about them.

[eselle28]

Oh, interesting. I had my students do that back when I taught, but instead of "interesting fact," I had them tell me "anything I might need to know about you." And that's when I got students who would tell me things -- like I would have done had I been the student -- like that they were Type 1 diabetic or pregnant or stuff like that they wanted the teacher to know but didn't necessarily want to announce in class. I didn't require that part, though. If there was nothing they felt I needed to know, they didn't tell me.

I had no idea that was resented by some.

Ah, see, that's different I think. I've never had anyone set it up like that. I always encountered the exercise as, "Think of something interesting about yourself that's amusing enough to look like you're a good sport but not so odd anyone will stare at you or pick on you or judge you - right now!" I wouldn't have minded it if, "Nah, nothing comes to mind," was an option.

[Wondering]

What? Make people stand up and tell classmates an interesting thing about themselves? Why would you do that to your students? Ack!

[The Wisp]

What? Make people stand up and tell classmates an interesting thing about themselves? Why would you do that to your students? Ack!

I've had to do this exercise in at least one class every semester in college, and many times in high school too.

[eselle28]

What? Make people stand up and tell classmates an interesting thing about themselves? Why would you do that to your students? Ack!

I've had to do this exercise in at least one class every semester in college, and many times in high school too.

I had to do it in one of my law school classes! What was funny is that I was the only person in my law school class from my state, and I know that in that room were a person who was much younger than the average law school student, someone from a very wealthy family with a recognizable last name, a number of people who had unique athletic/academic/professional accomplishments, a student trained in another country who'd been not just a lawyer but a judge, and all kinds of other people who had really obvious traits that would be interesting to others. None of those people mentioned those things, because who wants to be pigeonholed like that in front of a bunch of strangers who you're hoping will become your new friends? It was a half hour of people telling random childhood stories and mentioning semi-common hobbies.

[The Wisp]

What? Make people stand up and tell classmates an interesting thing about themselves? Why would you do that to your students? Ack!

I've had to do this exercise in at least one class every semester in college, and many times in high school too.

I had to do it in one of my law school classes! What was funny is that I was the only person in my law school class from my state, and I know that in that room were a person who was much younger than the average law school student, someone from a very wealthy family with a recognizable last name, a number of people who had unique athletic/academic/professional accomplishments, a student trained in another country who'd been not just a lawyer but a judge, and all kinds of other people who had really obvious traits that would be interesting to others. None of those people mentioned those things, because who wants to be pigeonholed like that in front of a bunch of strangers who you're hoping will become your new friends? It was a half hour of people telling random childhood stories and mentioning semi-common hobbies.

That is funny!

In my experience, yeah, everybody says one of those two things, or "I traveled to x over the summer". Of course, there's always that one person who says something witty in response, which then puts even more pressure on you!

[Raindancing]

Oh, it was always a massive waste of time, but when I taught as a grad student we were required to do it, and so I kept doing it the first couple of semesters after that. And after thinking about it, I really didn't want to interact with my students' hobbies or personal lives. I wanted to keep things relevant to math.

So after that I used the first 20 minutes to go over the syllabus and then broke students up into groups, and handed them a packet of problems titled "Review of Prerequisite Knowledge". It worked well, and surprisingly, I had a lot of students tell me that they really liked that as a first-day activity.

[nearly_takuan]

Oh, it was always a massive waste of time, but when I taught as a grad student we were required to do it, and so I kept doing it the first couple of semesters after that.  And after thinking about it, I really didn't want to interact with my students' hobbies or personal lives.  I wanted to keep things relevant to math.

So after that I used the first 20 minutes to go over the syllabus and then broke students up into groups, and handed them a packet of problems titled "Review of Prerequisite Knowledge".  It worked well, and surprisingly, I had a lot of students tell me that they really liked that as a first-day activity.

Yeah, those kinds of things went much better for me.

There was still posturing and faking, of course, but it was significantly more navigable. Easy enough for me to just pretend there was one or two things I was still fuzzy on, so the other people in my group had opportunities to "help" and show off and feel good and be friendly. In more advanced classes when we did stuff like that, we all pretty much knew each other already anyway, so it was a more genuinely fun and interesting exercise in comparing and contrasting proof styles.

[reboot]

Here is a huge generational difference. The only icebreaker I had in " hard " science classes was "Look to your left, look to your right, one of you will fail this class"

I would have preferred discussing hobbies, so I wonder if my generating invented the stupid icebreaker?

[nearly_takuan]

I've suddenly become extremely popular on LinkedIn, getting some pretty awesome-sounding invitations to come apply or even skip to interviewing for jobs that sound incredibly well-tuned to my interests.

Except, I've only been in my new job for a month now, and I already love it, and they need me right now, and I'm pretty big on loyalty, and given that I quit my previous job after less than two years I kind of need to prove it....

Gah. That dude who walked out our door and only later emailed us to explain that he had already quit our company to work somewhere else is still so fresh in my mind, I can't imagine leaving, even if I could give months of notice. Especially because a lot of the skills I've recently picked up that make me feel good about my qualifications for these other jobs are the direct result of challenges this company has placed in front of me. I'm getting more than my salary out of our "relationship".

But...a smallish-but-well-funded company, offering competitive salaries, that actually has direct involvement in the local education system and is branching into public health and safety interests? Where were you, three months ago?!

[The Wisp]

Tinder seems to have a reputation as a hook-up app, which is odd because it doesn't actually seem to be used that way. You're probably as likely to get a hook-up from OkCupid as Tinder, if my second-hand anecdata and looking at the women's profiles are accurate (many women on Tinder explicitly say "I don't want to hook-up").

[Guest]

Tinder's become a fucking joke tbh.

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