One Year

Today (or yesterday, since now it's after midnight) was the one year anniversary of my old high school friend Shannon's death at the age of 40, just a few weeks shy of turning 41.  It was cancer, which she battled for the last several years of her life.  I don't know if her two daughters ever knew her as "not sick".

Sure, I hadn't seen her in AGES, since the early 1990s, but it was nice to know she was out there being a wonderful wife and mother.  For one year now, the world has been a little emptier without her spark in it.  I'm sad for her husband and her two kids, none of whom I've ever met.  How has the year been for them, I wonder.  My own mother was taken at about that same age, but it was sudden, in the blink of an eye.  Would I have wanted her to hang on, miserably fighting a battle that she could not win, just so I could see her more?  I don't know.  I feel for Emma and Lauren, and for Scott, who had to be devastated to see his beloved wife fight so hard for so long.

And most of all, I remember my old friend Shannon, and hope she is at peace, free of pain at last, and able to somehow see her daughters as they grow.

With all the ways I've abused myself over the last 25 years, how can I be outliving so many beautiful people?!?  It makes no sense at all.

Valley of the Shadow of Death

George Carlin has died.  Less than 8 hours ago as I write this.  I know he was 71, which is somewhere between young and old, but he somehow seemed timeless.  Who among us could picture him dying?

It's sobering, and at 1AM in a quiet house it would be easy to succumb to the black despair of The Approaching End.  I've done it a few times, I know.  As far back as when I was just 8 or 10 years old, I remember lying in bed terrified of death.  Probably it was the result of losing my mom so unexpectedly and tragically, but who knows.

Rather than despair, maybe it's best to use the Cold Hand of Death as motivation.  I think this is true whether one is a religious person or not.  Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, it's good to remind yourself from time to time that this is your chance to do something marvelous with life.  Laugh, cry, live, love, make a difference.

I remember lying in bed as a child, thinking about the year 2000, which at that time was in the distant future.  I remember thinking about how I would turn 33 years old in 2000, one foot in the grave (33 is pretty old when you're 10).  Well, 33 has come and gone long ago, and now I'm 41.  Now this is the part where I could whine that I haven't accomplished anything, haven't done anything memorable.  Ah, but that would be a lie.  I've done a hundred or more things that are very important to my soul, and to other souls around me.  I've shared 10 years with a son who is an amazing person, partly because of me.  I've spent 17 years with a woman who... I don't even know how to finish that sentence.  I hope to be lucky enough to spend 60 more years with her.  I have the kind of bond with my Dad that few children are ever lucky enough to experience.

I've loved a best friend who ended up as my polar opposite in almost every way after our paths diverged.  I've loved another best friend who took his own life; that was one of the most traumatic events of my life, but I was privileged to know Thomas for 10 years before that.  I've made music with my sax and my voice, and I've hit all the notes in Bridge Over Troubled Water.  I've heard the thud of tennis balls against the grass courts of Wimbledon.  I've had my picture taken with two senators (including one who was later Vice-President of the US) and one porn star, and I've had the Queen of England walk within five feet of me.  

I can close my eyes and smell fresh-cut grass or burning leaves.  I have cried at sad movies, and at happy movies, and at action flicks.  I'm sensitive, and I'd like to stay that way.

No, my 41 years have been far from a waste.  Still, dear Cold Hand of Death, I'm not nearly done.  I have so much left to do, so much left to feel.  "Your life is now", according to John Mellencamp, and I believe him.  I can and do spend time thinking about the past, planning for the future, and fearing the inevitable, but none of those are my life.  My life is now.  Now is the only moment available to me, and I am making Now extraordinary.  I encourage you to do the same.

A Comprehensive Post

This morning I turned in my "Comprehensive Exam" for my PhD, 42 minutes before it was due.  For anyone who doesn't know but for some bizarre reason cares, the comprehensive exam is like the last "big hurdle" before embarking on one's dissertation proposal.  In fact, it kind of lays the groundwork for the proposal, although in my case it remains to be seen how well that will work... my comprehensive exam questions were so astoundingly broad that a person could write 20 different dissertations based on it.  But hey, that's better than ZERO.  Anyway, as far as I recall, I wrote about existing research, AND put forth my own ideas, on all of the following (showing just how broad the questions were):

• Quantity
• Quantification
• Variable
• Covariation
• Functions
• Function Composition
• Related Rates Problems
• Model-Eliciting Activities
• The "Models and Modeling Perspective"
• Reflection Tools
• Affect
• Motivation
• "Flow" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)
• Problem-Solving
• Reflection (in the cognitive sense, not the mirror sense)
• Teaching Experiments
• Data Collection
• Open Coding
• Conceptual Analysis

I wrote 62 single-spaced pages, and given the time, I could have written ten times that much and felt like I still only scratched the surface.  It was a good experience for me, although I look forward to getting my hands on those people who described their comprehensive exams as "fun", or "a transformative experience".  Those people need to be beaten severely.  I hated every minute of it, except the part at 7:18AM when I emailed my responses to my committee and knew it was done.  THAT moment was indeed both fun and transformative!

I did learn some important things.  Most important was the need for a reviewer, at the very least a trusted friend who can serve as a "sounding board".  Even with 20 days to do my comprehensive exam, I felt that what I wrote was disconnected, flowed badly, had gaps, and BADLY needed a reviewer's eye.  That was against the rules, though... but maybe that was good, since it taught me (or reinforced the idea) never to publish anything without running it by a few trustworthy radical constructivists first.  Sadly, from what I can tell, there are less than a dozen such people in existence.  People who really "get" what radical constructivism (in my opinion) is all about.  Maybe I can help keep the flame burning for another generation.  Me and K-Mo.

The other important thing I learned from my comp exam was how to pronounce "Csikszentmihalyi".

Big Money for Nerding

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a kid from Indiana won the National Spelling Bee tonight... and its $35,000 cash prize.  When I was in the finals in 1980 and 1981, the winner took home $1000.  Those of us in the middle of the pack took home checks for $50.  We also weren't televised, because people back then had enough sense not to put pitiful nerds on national TV.  Like everything else, now it's big business, complete with mini-features to tell the contestants' "back stories".  My back story?  "F*** off, I'm a lonely geek.  I study spelling words at lunch because I'm afraid of people yet crave their approval. My best time for solving my Rubik's cube is 1:06.  My hobbies include getting angry at basketball games.  Is that enough background for you?"   Ah, the good old days...