I think one of the biggest concerns of a blogger, if Julie and Julia taught me anything, is page views. What's the point in posting if nobody is viewing, what are you some sort of latter day Emily Dickinson? No, you want traffic! So go to that fat orange B on the upper left corner, click it to get a dashboard, then click "stats". See it? At least half a dozen folks have probably stopped by, or millions, you just don't know until you check it.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
The Wine Dark Sea - Online Latin Tales of Woe
Looking back on it I really should have taken Spanish, I could have actually used that and surely it must be easier than Latin. I guess I took Latin because it seemed like something a pretentious English major would know, grounding in the Classics. The first semester was frightening, I had been out of college for years and the course was a lot tougher than what I expected. Still I slogged through, mostly with mnemonics and lucky guesses. I managed a B+ but I was still only halfway through my language requirements. I couldn't imagine sitting through another M-W-F semester of Latin Power Points and quizzes, when I saw there was an online offering I jumped at it!
I had never taken an online course before and for some reason I imagined it would be this sort of video chat thing where I would watch a teacher online and chime in with the headset I was told to buy. What it turned out to be was a blackboard set up with notes, homework assignments and quizzes. You might think such a course would be easy, after all you could cheat right? Well, aside from the honor system the Professor played a few head games on us, boasting how every semester he caught students cheating and brought them before the Undergrad Dean for I don’t know, excommunication or something awful. A classmate claimed that the Professor had a database of words and rules he had taught us and anything outside of his canon would be considered cheating. To take quizzes we were required to use this special "computer lock down" software that prevented us from opening up anything besides the testing window.
All of this really started to stress me out. The first week I scored a 100 on the quiz, would he accuse me of cheating? Should I dumb it down? The worst part was that quizzes weren't quizzes at all, at least not in the sense that a quiz is something you do for the first half hour of class and it's less than twenty questions long. Latin II quizzes were what I would call final exam length and there was one every week except when we had actual midterms and finals which were truly massive. We were given two hours to complete our quizzes and I never finished with more than a few minutes to spare. Sitting in front of my computer with a kitchen timer ticking, it was sheer terror. Still I was getting good at the game, keeping my test average in the upper eighties and nailing the homework. His homework policy was strictly punitive, you earned nothing for doing your homework instead you lost points for not doing it or doing it poorly.
The day of the final exam I was a wreck mentally. I had studied like mad, reviewing every sentence we had ever worked with, trying to psych out his patterns. I ritualistically cleaned my computer desk and cleared the area of distractions. I had my coffee thermos, kleenex, pencils, scratch paper and two bags of sour patch kids (I would eat one for every question I answered, I know I'm weird). I did some stretches, calculated when to take a bathroom break, turned off my phone and began my three-hour odyssey. I elected to tackle the difficult sentence translations first, figuring I could sprint through the multiple choice section if I had to. I stumbled on few missing nouns right out of the gate and struggled to meet my time goals. Halfway through I knocked over the thermos creating a big coffee puddle that I couldn't stop to mop up. Everything was falling into place but I needed to get some extra credit questions done. The Professor had offered a very generous deal; if our final exam was a higher score than our midterm he would make that our exam average. I knew my best hope lay in picking up some extra credit to counter the disappointing score I had made on the midterm.
I had only ten minutes to translate three sentences, not nearly enough time but like a punch drunk fighter I kept plugging. I lined up my verbs to mine them for person and tense and then slotted the nouns in, then something suddenly engaged in my brain, awakening a part of my database that heretofore had been asleep. The sentences were directly lifted from the Aeneid, literature over Latin! I translated them almost entirely on the memory of the story and dammit it worked! I won the Trojan War! With 30 seconds on the clock I hit submit and after a nail biting weekend I found out I had made a B+ in the course. I must admit the Latin I learned is fading away but I will never forget my online course and the epic battle of Troy.
I had never taken an online course before and for some reason I imagined it would be this sort of video chat thing where I would watch a teacher online and chime in with the headset I was told to buy. What it turned out to be was a blackboard set up with notes, homework assignments and quizzes. You might think such a course would be easy, after all you could cheat right? Well, aside from the honor system the Professor played a few head games on us, boasting how every semester he caught students cheating and brought them before the Undergrad Dean for I don’t know, excommunication or something awful. A classmate claimed that the Professor had a database of words and rules he had taught us and anything outside of his canon would be considered cheating. To take quizzes we were required to use this special "computer lock down" software that prevented us from opening up anything besides the testing window.
All of this really started to stress me out. The first week I scored a 100 on the quiz, would he accuse me of cheating? Should I dumb it down? The worst part was that quizzes weren't quizzes at all, at least not in the sense that a quiz is something you do for the first half hour of class and it's less than twenty questions long. Latin II quizzes were what I would call final exam length and there was one every week except when we had actual midterms and finals which were truly massive. We were given two hours to complete our quizzes and I never finished with more than a few minutes to spare. Sitting in front of my computer with a kitchen timer ticking, it was sheer terror. Still I was getting good at the game, keeping my test average in the upper eighties and nailing the homework. His homework policy was strictly punitive, you earned nothing for doing your homework instead you lost points for not doing it or doing it poorly.
The day of the final exam I was a wreck mentally. I had studied like mad, reviewing every sentence we had ever worked with, trying to psych out his patterns. I ritualistically cleaned my computer desk and cleared the area of distractions. I had my coffee thermos, kleenex, pencils, scratch paper and two bags of sour patch kids (I would eat one for every question I answered, I know I'm weird). I did some stretches, calculated when to take a bathroom break, turned off my phone and began my three-hour odyssey. I elected to tackle the difficult sentence translations first, figuring I could sprint through the multiple choice section if I had to. I stumbled on few missing nouns right out of the gate and struggled to meet my time goals. Halfway through I knocked over the thermos creating a big coffee puddle that I couldn't stop to mop up. Everything was falling into place but I needed to get some extra credit questions done. The Professor had offered a very generous deal; if our final exam was a higher score than our midterm he would make that our exam average. I knew my best hope lay in picking up some extra credit to counter the disappointing score I had made on the midterm.
I had only ten minutes to translate three sentences, not nearly enough time but like a punch drunk fighter I kept plugging. I lined up my verbs to mine them for person and tense and then slotted the nouns in, then something suddenly engaged in my brain, awakening a part of my database that heretofore had been asleep. The sentences were directly lifted from the Aeneid, literature over Latin! I translated them almost entirely on the memory of the story and dammit it worked! I won the Trojan War! With 30 seconds on the clock I hit submit and after a nail biting weekend I found out I had made a B+ in the course. I must admit the Latin I learned is fading away but I will never forget my online course and the epic battle of Troy.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Nantaskets end
The far western end of the beach in Hull. The shore is a little stony and the waves are tame. Perfect for wading and rock climbing. Seven dollars to park
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Limited to Endodontics - A Dental Story
You've probably never heard of "endodontics" before, which is a good thing since you typically learn what they do right before they do it to you. When I was eight I went flying over the handlebars of my bike and left my front teeth on the street. Since then I've had two root canals to repair the lingering damage and recently I underwent a third procedure which involves a specialist or endodontist actually drilling into my jaw and gum to cap the root itself. I tried to put the experience into a short story, here goes -
“How are we this morning Mr. Scott?”
“A little nervous really.”
“Oh, you’ll do fine, you won’t feel a thing.”
“Less painful than a root canal right?”
“Right, less painful than a root canal.”
Dr.Clark removes the cotton swab from my gums, its sour ointment paves the way for the Novocaine needle which will allow her arsenal of autoclaved implements unwincing access to the bone line. The needle is fine and fast, overlapping ripples of numbness make my tongue a stranger in its home. Here we will pause, X-rays will be taken with an awkward bite guide and a comforting lead blanket, questions will be asked regarding what I can no longer sense about the fore of my palate.
“It all feels like a walnut shell now.”
“Good, if you feel anything just raise your arm.”
“Mmm-nhh, would it be okay if I listen to my headphones?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve got Shakespeare’s Othello, its for a class”
“Oh.”
At this point Dr.Clark dons a surgical mask, a pair of technical glasses with magnifying protrusions and finally a halogen head lamp, her red hair and blue scrubs all but vanish in the corona. Loda, the long necked assistant places a pair of black-out shades over my eyes. The chair drops with hydraulic oil effortlessness.
“First we will ease the gum back so we can gain access to the base of the root.”
“Uhh-aughhh.”
“It’s not that bad, if it helps I can tell you where we are at as we go along in the procedure.”
“Pleedesed dohnut. I juwz wan ta zohn out.”
“I’m going to ask you to bite down on this”
A cotton log goes between my teeth, my eyes knit shut as latex fingertips linger at points where I still receive sensation. I interlock my fingers and press one thumb against the other in corresponding intensity to the pain I feel. All is fine, all is Othello.
Instruments go in and out with pewter tones, some of them find things to burn, some dig, some scrape. Something with a motor saws at the root, I feel nothing, I only hear the slight change in pitch as it works through denser substances inside my gum. Cassio cannot hold his liquor.
“How ya doing?”
“mmmalllright.”
Dr.Clark calls for “elevators” of various sizes, suggesting something is being scaffolded, the area in question is not much bigger than a lentil but it requires a lot of attending. I distinctly hear the request for bone, what I later learn are tiny amounts deproteinized bovine bone matter, this substance is then packed into the void surrounding the newly shorn root. Toro Bravo. The packing creates a new awareness, Dr.Clark and perhaps Loda are holding my jaw steady and forcing material up into my jaw. The pushing throbs pain into my face, punishing areas well beyond the reach of the Novocaine. I say nothing, an hour into the procedure I am stoic and trying desperately to follow the handkerchief.
The packing finishes, this apparently being the climax of the procedure, I wonder if it was worth saving the tooth. The numbness now has holes in it, I feel the air conditioning drying my gums. Finally the welcome words of cotton and suture, a thread snakes over my cheek, diving and tugging. I imagine the seam of a baseball.
“Not so bad was it?”
“I feel like a hooked fish, like you were under my nostril almost going through”
“We weren’t far”
“Yikes”
“Nice and healthy besides the area we cleaned, not bad really.”
“Wonderful.” “A little nervous really.”
“Oh, you’ll do fine, you won’t feel a thing.”
“Less painful than a root canal right?”
“Right, less painful than a root canal.”
Dr.Clark removes the cotton swab from my gums, its sour ointment paves the way for the Novocaine needle which will allow her arsenal of autoclaved implements unwincing access to the bone line. The needle is fine and fast, overlapping ripples of numbness make my tongue a stranger in its home. Here we will pause, X-rays will be taken with an awkward bite guide and a comforting lead blanket, questions will be asked regarding what I can no longer sense about the fore of my palate.
“It all feels like a walnut shell now.”
“Good, if you feel anything just raise your arm.”
“Mmm-nhh, would it be okay if I listen to my headphones?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve got Shakespeare’s Othello, its for a class”
“Oh.”
At this point Dr.Clark dons a surgical mask, a pair of technical glasses with magnifying protrusions and finally a halogen head lamp, her red hair and blue scrubs all but vanish in the corona. Loda, the long necked assistant places a pair of black-out shades over my eyes. The chair drops with hydraulic oil effortlessness.
“First we will ease the gum back so we can gain access to the base of the root.”
“Uhh-aughhh.”
“It’s not that bad, if it helps I can tell you where we are at as we go along in the procedure.”
“Pleedesed dohnut. I juwz wan ta zohn out.”
“I’m going to ask you to bite down on this”
A cotton log goes between my teeth, my eyes knit shut as latex fingertips linger at points where I still receive sensation. I interlock my fingers and press one thumb against the other in corresponding intensity to the pain I feel. All is fine, all is Othello.
Instruments go in and out with pewter tones, some of them find things to burn, some dig, some scrape. Something with a motor saws at the root, I feel nothing, I only hear the slight change in pitch as it works through denser substances inside my gum. Cassio cannot hold his liquor.
“How ya doing?”
“mmmalllright.”
Dr.Clark calls for “elevators” of various sizes, suggesting something is being scaffolded, the area in question is not much bigger than a lentil but it requires a lot of attending. I distinctly hear the request for bone, what I later learn are tiny amounts deproteinized bovine bone matter, this substance is then packed into the void surrounding the newly shorn root. Toro Bravo. The packing creates a new awareness, Dr.Clark and perhaps Loda are holding my jaw steady and forcing material up into my jaw. The pushing throbs pain into my face, punishing areas well beyond the reach of the Novocaine. I say nothing, an hour into the procedure I am stoic and trying desperately to follow the handkerchief.
The packing finishes, this apparently being the climax of the procedure, I wonder if it was worth saving the tooth. The numbness now has holes in it, I feel the air conditioning drying my gums. Finally the welcome words of cotton and suture, a thread snakes over my cheek, diving and tugging. I imagine the seam of a baseball.
“Not so bad was it?”
“I feel like a hooked fish, like you were under my nostril almost going through”
“We weren’t far”
“Yikes”
“Nice and healthy besides the area we cleaned, not bad really.”
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Got an Android phone?
As you'll see over the coming weeks I really like to take pictures and post them, and most of the time I'm using my smartphone. There are several methods for getting pictures from your phone onto your blog but the best way I've found is with the official app -
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.blogger
I'm sure it has an iPhone sibling as well. I guess you could also write your posts with it, if you really like using that tiny keyboard.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.blogger
I'm sure it has an iPhone sibling as well. I guess you could also write your posts with it, if you really like using that tiny keyboard.
Acadia docks
I love the panorama mode on my droid, alas it's hard to get it to display larger than a stick of gum! Back to picasa.
The Butterfly Man
I think it's a rule that if you're an English major at UMB you must take at least one of Professor Nelson's classes, if only to unlearn what the other Profs have taught you. I ended up taking two courses with Duncan so on the first day of the second class I was ready with my phone. Note the summer hat.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
And now our revels come to an end...
Like Prospero I must soon leave my magical island. My Acadian adventure ends tomorrow when I strike camp and return to Boston. I will be grateful for the warm shower, the mattress and most of all the reliable internet connection. I ate a lobster roll tonight, yeah and you know I don't even like lobster. I just felt I had to because it was a picnic table, on a dock, in summer, in Maine. It's sentimental tourists like me that keep these lobster pounds afloat. When you go to place your order you realize the entire staff of good looking all American teens are actually Eastern European college kids, we're all visitors in one way or another. I went to a beach here, the sea was so icy even I, a guy who swims on the South Shore in June, could barely take it. My wife suggested I get a bathing suit shirt, a rash guard she called it, what an awful name. She pointed to some guy who looked like Carlos Mencia in an Old Navy swim set, said it looked good on him. I wanted to bury my head in the sand. There are a lot Americans who swim with a shirt on, too many I think, I don't want to be one of them. Not this summer anyways....
Back in Boston by Saturday, lovely vacation pictures to follow.
Back in Boston by Saturday, lovely vacation pictures to follow.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Here come the words
This is my third class based blog so I should be a pro at this! This is just a test post, make sure this thing loads up all right. I started using Google+ (need an invite?) and for some reason that makes it harder to get to my blogs. I have an Android phone which should in theory make it easier to post pictures and such here, wait and see.
Hope you're enjoying the fine weather!
Hope you're enjoying the fine weather!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)