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renrenren3So Peyton's been bothering me to update my LJ but I felt like RL was too boring and sad and derpy to talk about that and I've already got Tumblr for fandom squee. Which mostly equates to writing inane strings of letters in the tags of gifsets that give me feels, but still. Isa posted this meme thingy today and I thought YES GOOD SHE'S GOING TO TELL ME WHAT TO TALK ABOUT. And thus an update was born.
1. Something you love about your country.
Tough because there's not a whole lot I like about this country, but it's gotta be the food. I'm not one of those who think that all food outside of Italy is crap, as a matter of fact I looove trying out new food and I ate good things mostly everywhere I've been, from Spain to Greece to England. And I could probably move abroad today and live with the foreign food,unless I move to Wales in which case shoot me now, but there's something to be said for a country where every tiny town has at least one good pizzeria.
Plus, I'd miss all the cookies and breakfast cereal brands I grew up with.
2. There's a new law to bring down the size of the population so that we can keep this Earth a while longer. It states that half of the planet's inhabitants must be eaten. Would you rather be the eater or the eatee?
Isa, you creep. I'm going with eatee because I'd rather not be killed off just yet, and I'd rather not eat anyone I personally know. BUT SERIOUSLY, I DON'T LIKE TO THINK ABOUT MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY BEING EATEN. MEANIE. :|
3. Pick: Rock, paper or scissors and why. (Answer doesn't have to be related to the rules of the game.)
Paper because paper's always useful, you can write on it, you can draw on it, I've got a huge stack of white paper on my desk in case I want to scribble something. Not white paper actually, it's printouts from my parents' work that we recycle by writing on the blank side, because we're eco friendly like that. Also we use up so much paper that it'd get expensive to feed our scribbling addiction.
But yeah, paper. Rocks are boring and I'm not allowed near scissors without a grown-up around. Though I manage to mutilate myself well enough with papercuts.
4. Zombie apocalypse! What's your weapon of choice?
At first I was like BASEBALL BAT! because I like swinging baseball bats. In high school one of my favourite PE moments (which I hated with the fiery passion of something very passionate, btw) was when we played baseball in the tiny yard. And hockey too. Generally I liked the idea of whacking people on the teeth with a blunt instrument. Not that I ever did because I'm not a violent person, but I like the idea. It carried me through.
But then I thought, ew zombies, I don't really want to get close, a melee weapon might not be such a good idea after all. So I'm going with a machine gun because it's a semiautomatic weapon so it's good against the shambling undead horde and I don't need good aim like with a shotgun.
Yeah, I really gave this one a lot of thought.
5. An evil witch puts a curse on you and you lose one of your senses. Which sense would you rather lose?
Herp derp which are the five senses let me tick them off because I might have forgotten one. Oh yeah. Ok. Uhm. Can I give up the sixth sense since I don't have much of one to begin with?
Smell, because I can do without it and sometimes there's bad smells, so not suffering because of bad smells = good. I could probably give up taste too, but not being able to taste tea and chocolate would mean a world of pain. And giving up touch feels... idk... I'd feel cold and weird. DNW.
6. Which movie would you like to see a remake of and why?
X-Men because I like X-Men but the movie trilogy? It was a hot mess. I'd like for it to have a second chance. Maybe they could do it in 30-50 years time and McAvoy and Fassy could play Xavier and Magneto, and then my crotchety old self could go see it and cry and shake her cane at the youngsters, and maybe their faily marriage would be canon because the future is progressive like that. IDK sometimes I think about the future of fandom and slash couples a lot.
7. Why maths? WHY REN? WHY?
BECAUSE IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND PRETTY AND ALL THINGS GOOD. And some things bad too, but srsly maths is one of the most awesome things ever. And it makes me cry when people say EW MATHS and then they laugh and say that they were never any good at it in school, it gets me every time because THAT'S NOT HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE. The thing you learn in school, that's not maths. Maths is this wonderful subject that explains so many things about the universe and what's so wonderful about it is that things make sense. And you might call things with different names and argue about how to better phrase a definition, but ultimately it boils down to the same things. With other subjects it's subjective and you never really know how to answer stuff sometimes. A teacher might tell you something on what a piece of poetry means only for another teacher to come around and tell you the opposite, or you think a certain even in history went down one way only to find evidence that oops it didn't, and Lamarck said one thing about evolution and Darwin said another and people were scratching their heads for decades and everyone's still iffy about evolution because who knows for certain. Maths is easier. You know stuff is true, or you know stuff isn't true, or you don't but it's because you haven't figured it out but when you do it's really like a lightbulb and everything will make sense and be beautiful.
Really that's the thing about maths. You need to get it, and then it'll be beautiful. But with the way the school system works, that's impossible. Because you have bored unmotivated teachers who are talking to a large classroom full of bored unmotivated kids, so why bother? It's so much easier to tell someone THIS IS THE FORMULA LEARN IT BY HEART THERE WILL BE A TEST LATER and then give them twenty exercises that are all the same and then you correct their tests and fail half of them and move on to the next topic, and before the end of the week everyone has forgotten the formula because learning things parrot-style doesn't work. And then it comes back to bite you in the ass because in maths everything is linked together and if you don't know the properties of exponents you don't know how to simplify linear/quadratic equations you don't know how to solve them you don't know how to solve disequations you don't know how to study a function you don't know derivatives the fuck is an integral give up on everything I'm going to major in something else anyway and this will never be useful to me for the rest of my life. Which might or might not be true, but you still need some maths if you want to split a bill or open a savings account and all the numbers and percentages baffle you, idk, it's such a waste that so many people study it in school without ever finding it useful.
Er, sorry, got sidetracked. The point is that the current system fails. There's people who study how to best teach maths, and mostly they agree that the most effective system is to give pupils a problem and then let them work it out for themselves, BUT NOT BY GIVING THEM HOMEWORK WITHOUT EXPLAINING HOW TO DO WHICH IS A JERK MOVE, I HATE ALL TEACHERS WHO DID THAT. Instead of a normal lesson, the teacher asks questions that push pupils in the right direction, so instead of being told "here you add X" and being left to wonder why or where even X came from, they come to that realization themselves, and then it makes sense for them, and then they remember it without needing to study it. Which is obvs more time consuming so very few teachers bother with it, but it's much more effective. SORRY I WENT ON A TANGENT BUT I HAVE FEELINGS ON THE SUBJECT.
tl;dr YOU SEE MATHS IS BEAUTIFUL BECAUSE (ALMOST) EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE AND IT SOLVES THE MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE.
Oh, also before I forget, Teen Wolf has eaten my mind.
Comment to this post, and I will list seven things I want you to talk about. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal.
1. Something you love about your country.
Tough because there's not a whole lot I like about this country, but it's gotta be the food. I'm not one of those who think that all food outside of Italy is crap, as a matter of fact I looove trying out new food and I ate good things mostly everywhere I've been, from Spain to Greece to England. And I could probably move abroad today and live with the foreign food,
Plus, I'd miss all the cookies and breakfast cereal brands I grew up with.
2. There's a new law to bring down the size of the population so that we can keep this Earth a while longer. It states that half of the planet's inhabitants must be eaten. Would you rather be the eater or the eatee?
Isa, you creep. I'm going with eatee because I'd rather not be killed off just yet, and I'd rather not eat anyone I personally know. BUT SERIOUSLY, I DON'T LIKE TO THINK ABOUT MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY BEING EATEN. MEANIE. :|
3. Pick: Rock, paper or scissors and why. (Answer doesn't have to be related to the rules of the game.)
Paper because paper's always useful, you can write on it, you can draw on it, I've got a huge stack of white paper on my desk in case I want to scribble something. Not white paper actually, it's printouts from my parents' work that we recycle by writing on the blank side, because we're eco friendly like that. Also we use up so much paper that it'd get expensive to feed our scribbling addiction.
But yeah, paper. Rocks are boring and I'm not allowed near scissors without a grown-up around. Though I manage to mutilate myself well enough with papercuts.
4. Zombie apocalypse! What's your weapon of choice?
At first I was like BASEBALL BAT! because I like swinging baseball bats. In high school one of my favourite PE moments (which I hated with the fiery passion of something very passionate, btw) was when we played baseball in the tiny yard. And hockey too. Generally I liked the idea of whacking people on the teeth with a blunt instrument. Not that I ever did because I'm not a violent person, but I like the idea. It carried me through.
But then I thought, ew zombies, I don't really want to get close, a melee weapon might not be such a good idea after all. So I'm going with a machine gun because it's a semiautomatic weapon so it's good against the shambling undead horde and I don't need good aim like with a shotgun.
Yeah, I really gave this one a lot of thought.
5. An evil witch puts a curse on you and you lose one of your senses. Which sense would you rather lose?
Smell, because I can do without it and sometimes there's bad smells, so not suffering because of bad smells = good. I could probably give up taste too, but not being able to taste tea and chocolate would mean a world of pain. And giving up touch feels... idk... I'd feel cold and weird. DNW.
6. Which movie would you like to see a remake of and why?
X-Men because I like X-Men but the movie trilogy? It was a hot mess. I'd like for it to have a second chance. Maybe they could do it in 30-50 years time and McAvoy and Fassy could play Xavier and Magneto, and then my crotchety old self could go see it and cry and shake her cane at the youngsters, and maybe their faily marriage would be canon because the future is progressive like that. IDK sometimes I think about the future of fandom and slash couples a lot.
7. Why maths? WHY REN? WHY?
BECAUSE IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND PRETTY AND ALL THINGS GOOD. And some things bad too, but srsly maths is one of the most awesome things ever. And it makes me cry when people say EW MATHS and then they laugh and say that they were never any good at it in school, it gets me every time because THAT'S NOT HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE. The thing you learn in school, that's not maths. Maths is this wonderful subject that explains so many things about the universe and what's so wonderful about it is that things make sense. And you might call things with different names and argue about how to better phrase a definition, but ultimately it boils down to the same things. With other subjects it's subjective and you never really know how to answer stuff sometimes. A teacher might tell you something on what a piece of poetry means only for another teacher to come around and tell you the opposite, or you think a certain even in history went down one way only to find evidence that oops it didn't, and Lamarck said one thing about evolution and Darwin said another and people were scratching their heads for decades and everyone's still iffy about evolution because who knows for certain. Maths is easier. You know stuff is true, or you know stuff isn't true, or you don't but it's because you haven't figured it out but when you do it's really like a lightbulb and everything will make sense and be beautiful.
Really that's the thing about maths. You need to get it, and then it'll be beautiful. But with the way the school system works, that's impossible. Because you have bored unmotivated teachers who are talking to a large classroom full of bored unmotivated kids, so why bother? It's so much easier to tell someone THIS IS THE FORMULA LEARN IT BY HEART THERE WILL BE A TEST LATER and then give them twenty exercises that are all the same and then you correct their tests and fail half of them and move on to the next topic, and before the end of the week everyone has forgotten the formula because learning things parrot-style doesn't work. And then it comes back to bite you in the ass because in maths everything is linked together and if you don't know the properties of exponents you don't know how to simplify linear/quadratic equations you don't know how to solve them you don't know how to solve disequations you don't know how to study a function you don't know derivatives the fuck is an integral give up on everything I'm going to major in something else anyway and this will never be useful to me for the rest of my life. Which might or might not be true, but you still need some maths if you want to split a bill or open a savings account and all the numbers and percentages baffle you, idk, it's such a waste that so many people study it in school without ever finding it useful.
Er, sorry, got sidetracked. The point is that the current system fails. There's people who study how to best teach maths, and mostly they agree that the most effective system is to give pupils a problem and then let them work it out for themselves, BUT NOT BY GIVING THEM HOMEWORK WITHOUT EXPLAINING HOW TO DO WHICH IS A JERK MOVE, I HATE ALL TEACHERS WHO DID THAT. Instead of a normal lesson, the teacher asks questions that push pupils in the right direction, so instead of being told "here you add X" and being left to wonder why or where even X came from, they come to that realization themselves, and then it makes sense for them, and then they remember it without needing to study it. Which is obvs more time consuming so very few teachers bother with it, but it's much more effective. SORRY I WENT ON A TANGENT BUT I HAVE FEELINGS ON THE SUBJECT.
tl;dr YOU SEE MATHS IS BEAUTIFUL BECAUSE (ALMOST) EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE AND IT SOLVES THE MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE.
Oh, also before I forget, Teen Wolf has eaten my mind.
 Come join ![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small} beacon_hills, an interactive challenge comm for Teen Wolf. The very first Phase There are two teams: team_argent and team_hale. They're both great teams, and which ever team you join EVEN THOUGH TEAM HALE IS TOTES THE BEST BECAUSE IT'S REN'S TEAM, you will be sure to have a great time competing. Apply for a team and be sure to tell them I sent you. |
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 08:37 pm (UTC)(I CAN SHOW YOU THE
WOOOOORLDFUNDAMENTAL THEOREM OF CALCULUS~)no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 09:04 pm (UTC)ILUUUUUUU
no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 10:23 pm (UTC)Maybe math would be more fun to learn if the problems were more applicable to people's interests like:
Batman is perched on a roof at this x height and there are six criminals standing below him as seen in diagram A. Assuming that Batman throws his batarangs hard enough to knock out a criminal with one batarang, at what angles should his batarangs be thrown to render all the criminals unconscious? etc. etc.
I wish I could come up with a fandom-related calculus problem, but it's been a while since I did any calc at all. otz
no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 10:36 pm (UTC)lol it's funny you should mention that because I've got a book on my bedside table called the physics of superheroes and it's exactly that, applying superhero examples to physics problems to make them palatable. I've been meaning to read it because I suck at physics (thanks to crappy teachers and a general disinterest in inclined planes and bouncing balls) but I ought to know the basis at the very least. And yk, superhero examples. Insta-awesome.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 11:40 pm (UTC)Because like, history can be really interesting, but not the way it is taught in school. There just pages upon pages full of dates and wars and people who were poor and people who were rich and changing governments and what else is new... But I enjoy learning about history in the context of fun things. I may not be able to recall them at a moment's notice but history can be interesting if done right! (Which reminds me, I need to continue watching Horrible Histories, which is flawless and interesting.)
Or, idk, German class was sheer horror for me because I don't enjoy being forced to interpret things a certain way and it only works if I enjoy the subject of my interpretation. I WISH EVERYTHING COULD BE FANDOM CONTEXT TBH. I can see where teachers get their weird interpretations from because fandom works like that as well, but I can't manage enough interest to work through a drab and boring story about drab and boring German people who did or didn't do drab and boring things. And even then, it's hard for me to pick things apart because that's just not enjoyable for me. It ruins the story, imo. I just don't like being forced to dig deeper than I want to. >.>
Idk, I just don't like being forced to appreciate things and I don't like being forced to be passionate about things and I don't like being forced to tear literature apart and that's totally why I quit uni. XD
Bless, I can imagine you as a crotchety old woman. It is a glorious image.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-07 11:15 am (UTC)And I totally agree about history and all other subjects, tbh I like history but not the way it's taught in schools, I like learning about how people lived and what they ate and what colour were their wedding dresses and did they read novels. I never cared much about dates and kings and conquests, though I had a really awesome history & philosophy teacher in my fourth and fifth year of high school, so I still remember what we learned in his class because he could make his lessons interesting, he'd tell us anecdotes about how in Prague a couple of ambassadors were thrown from a window into a pile of horse manure and this sparked a war AND SEE I STILL REMEMBER IT BECAUSE IT'S INTERESTING!
Horrible Histories = best, I still have a bunch of those books, I didn't even knew there was a tv series omgwant!
Urgh what I didn't like about literature was that we were forced to learn a bunch of things about symbolism but we couldn't, like, discuss it to see if we had different ideas, I mean what if I read something and it means something else to me? I didn't like the dogmatic aspect to it. But it is a pain in the butt when things are forced on you, like summer reading. I skipped most of the books on my summer reading list because I didn't care one bit about a boring book about Italian people doing boring things, I wish they'd just given us a longer list with more variety. IDK maybe I could have been passionate about it if my teacher had been passionate too instead of acting like she hated his job (and us).
I'm now imagining an internet full of the old women versions of us. The future is going to be awesome.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-07 11:44 am (UTC)Yeeees, I agree with everything you said. I find a lot of things interesting and fascinating but something in me just refuses to even consider things the second that somebody tells me I have to read them or like them or analyse them. I don't work well in that environment and I like it even less when you know you're going to be graded on your interpretations. Sure, some interpretations are completely cray, but if that's the way I see it, it should be fine, you know? Instead you're graded on it, and yeah they mostly grade your argumentation but idk, it's still them saying "no you're wrong", if you fuck up your arguments.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-07 12:20 pm (UTC)Let's be all contrary together. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that stuff any more, at least now I'm graded on things that objectively are right or wrong and aren't subject to interpretation. Plus anyway I do a lot of literary analysis for my book fandoms, SSSHHH, IT'S TOTALLY A LEGIT THING AND IT'S ENLIGHTENING.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-07 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-07 11:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-07 11:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-07 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 11:54 am (UTC)Btw quasi quasi proverei ad iscrivermi a beacon_hills but IDK I'M NOT THAT GOOD.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 01:08 pm (UTC)Btw mi è piaciuto il tuo sproloquio sulla Matematica, tell me more about that.