Linear Algebra
When I was a kid, I loved the idea of a blackboard full of equations. Especially the gigantic ones that have several layers and you can push one upward when you run out of space. The equations with bizarre yet elegant symbols give the empty blackboard meanings and substance, like stars in the dark universe. Where did I see these blackboards with equations? Movies, TV, Media. These math equations were coded to represent the idea of college education by media. To me, it had this mythical aura surrounding the complexity of the forms of maths as well as my imagination of the distant college education. These math equations can indeed be considered independent characters in many narrative media, from Good Will Hunting to A Beautiful Mind and to The Social Network.
Let’s fast forward to high school. The process of understanding more and more math and taking higher and higher level classes is also the process of the demystification of that magical, mythical aura. It’s not a fairy tale anymore. It’s homework, calculations, and tests. The moment I understood that the equations on the blackboards in Good Will Hunting were not at all as “deep” as I thought was electrifying: I realized how much time had passed and how much of my childhood mystification of future was dismantled by time.
It wasn’t until later in college that I rediscovered this mythical aura of math. It was when I was browsing the course catalog. Topology, Combinatorial, Linear Algebra, Analysis, Cryptography. It was a universe of math that I can barely get a glimpse of with the limited classes I would be taking in math. It was a time when I realized those blackboard equations in media do not remotely represent math. Math is a world of its own and I have been admiring it in the the distance. The more I know the less I believe I know about this world.
Too bad. I’m not a math major. Wish my luck on my Linear final!
Classical Political Theory
I first came across these amazing lines in Andrew Delbanco’s book on college education. And then I read these lines from The Illiad for one of my classes—Classical Political Theory—and was once again struck by its beauty.
They streamed over
in massed formation, with Apollo in front of them holding
the tremendous aegis, and wrecking the bastions of the Achaians
easily, as when a little boy piles sand by the sea-shore
when in his innocent play he makes sand towers to amuse him
and then, still playing, with hands and feet ruins and wrecks them.
As Delbanco writes, what’s awesome about this description of war is that we suddenly realize that little boys are still doing what little boys were doing thousands of years ago! Piling sand into towers and wrecking them for fun. Homer was describing an ancient battle in the way we are extremely familiar with: little boy playing sand by the seashore. We see this in movies. We see this in TV commercials. And I did this myself. I made these majestic (for me they were) castles, towers and skyscrapers on the beach and kicked them into ruins when I had to go back home. With such brutality and destructive impulse and belligerence that frightens me even today. It frightens me that wars were in us, even when we were little. These ancient texts from class sometimes just bring me intense feelings.
No wonder I have a hard time focusing in class. Sorry, Seery.
Introduction to Geology: Paleontology and the Evolution of Earth’s Biosphere
Finally get to take this class next semester. Yeah!
As a kid, I always wanted a fossil, as if it would provide this magical connection with the distant past. But then I thought, what doesn’t? All the rocks, sand, wood and everything surrounding us, and even us, are made up of particles that have existed for next to eternity. All the diamond commercial BS are trying to sell the eternal nature of diamond, but isn’t it true for every atom? And next semester, I will be learn about how these atoms became how they are arranged today.
I used to have this habit of leaving a pebble at important places I have been to: the Great Wall, the top of Wuyi Mountain, the grassland of Inner Mongolia.
They are probably gone.
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Anyway, forcing myself to give a relevant conclusion about this rambling post, I want to say this. A lot of my college experience is about the rediscovery of my episodes of childhood passions and random sentiments. Like the mythical aura of math, like a Homeric line about sand castle, like a stone. I really appreciate the privilege I have to take broad range a classes when specialization is the theme of modern education. I know as a fact that in the future, very likely, my path’s gonna narrow further down to a point where I won’t quite remember how much was in my mind when I was a little boy. So just let me, for the moment, indulge a little bit in liberal arts when I can.
There’s no part 2. I just thought it sounded cool.