Delay in Posting

I am taking part in NaNoWriMo (Profile Here) which takes place all through November.  I will be writing a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November.   Because of this, I am not going to post any blogs until the first week in December, or considering that the first Wednesday in December is the 1st of the month, I may wait until the second Wednesday in December.

I apologize for any inconvenience, or disappointment, but as I don't think anyone is actually reading my blog, I doubt there is any.  Assuming I am happy with the content, I may post my novel somewhere online if any of you nonexistent readers would be interested in reading and offering feedback.

For more information, or to see my current wordcount, I invite visit my NaNoWriMo Profile.  I also have a basic plot introduction, as well as a brief excerpt, posted on the profile as well for anyone interested.

Thank you,
Pearl

Could You Live Without Electricity for a Month?

Could I live without electricity for a month?  The answer to this question depends on how I define ‘live.’  Could I survive without it...of course!  Everyone could; human beings have lived without it for much longer than we’ve lived with it.  Perhaps a more pertinent question is this: could I live what I see as a normal life without electricity?  

To me this question is a very interesting one.  We experience brief power blackouts during some extreme storms, and if the power poles get knocked over for some reason.  We’ve dealt with the lack of electricity for brief periods of time ever since we’ve had it.  However, given how reliant we are on electricity, perhaps we should consider what life would be like if it went away.  

I’m going to say right now that I am not attempting to predict gloom and doom; that is not my purpose.  Nor am I writing a how-to live without electricity for a month; there are other articles and blogs on the topic and I don’t consider myself educated enough on the topic to write any such thing.  My purpose is to consider what the implications of a loss of electricity for any period of time mean in general terms for myself, and to provoke everyone else into considering it as well.  

There is a weak link in every chain.  Everyone in the modern world uses electricity in some form or another almost every minute of every day, from lighting, to air conditioning, cooking, watching TV, using a computer, charging a cellphone or MP3 player, and even purifying water to drink.  Electricity helped to produce everything we use: clothes, machinery, the desk I’m writing this from, the building you are in…everything.  Try and imagine life without electricity.  Go on…try.  

I cannot.  Not for myself at least.  Not in such a way that I could maintain the life I live right now.  However, given that I am accustomed to spending upwards of 6 hours a day on the computer, I’m inclined to believe that I am slightly biased.  I love technology and the electricity that allows us to have access to technology. 

On the other hand, every summer I go on a camping/backpacking trip with my family where I live happily without any type of technology for a bit less than a week.  I savor the freedom that having no cell reception allows.  I revel in the beauty of the wind in the trees, and the birds singing instead of listening to modern music on earbuds.  (Note: I do  in fact bring my cellphone and MP3 player, but have them turned off).  I refuse to wear a watch, because I don’t care what time it is!  I eat when I’m hungry, swim when I get hot, sleep when I’m tired, relax when I want to and play with other people when I feel like it.  I take pleasure in an existence that is in the here-and-now rather than in plotting and planning the future.

However, that is voluntary release of technology; not a forced cold-turkey like disaster that living without electricity for any lengthy period of time would seem to be.  Living a normal life without electricity would still require planning and time-keeping, unlike my retreat.  Life without electricity would require more planning than one without, in fact.  Imagine trying to stay cool, cook food, and keep in contact with other people all without electricity.  Even a couple hundred years ago people did just that.

Electricity is one of the things, a primary thing which allows us to live the technologically advanced lives that we do.  Happily, I don’t believe that we are likely to suffer from a mega-shortage anytime terribly soon.  However, to reiterate a previous question, since everyone relies upon electricity so much, shouldn’t we consider what life would be like without it?

Pearl

Next week I intend to pick a controversial topic, learn about it, and then explain it.  
Topic: Copyright and the Internet

Scarcity: Things We Want

We, the citizens of the US of A are very object oriented.  Nearly everyone has, at some point in their life, said, “I just need _____!” (Fill in the blank)  We sometimes confuse our needs with our wants & desires, however wanting is not a bad thing.People can buy brand-new, shiny, 2011 cars – in 2010.  Every six months a new phone model comes out, and is more advanced that it’s predecessor, but also more expensive.  I am not of the opinion that technology is bad; I love technology.  However, it seems that the more advanced we become, the more stuff we have the capability of making, and the more stuff we need, want, & desire.

So, if we continue to need, want, & desire things, at what point, if ever, will we say this is enough.  We are completely satisfied.  The answer is never.  Economists use the term scarcity to describe the needing, wanting, and desiring that drives the economy.  The US economy works around the belief that people want things, and are willing to work in order to get them.  If we didn’t all want things that we don’t necessarily need then perhaps socialism, or communism might actually work, but people aren’t that selfless.  Instead, people work to produce things that others buy, and by working the people earn money with which to buy their own items.

If people decided to become selfless and worked with no desire for compensation for their work then the world would go crazy, and our economy would be…different.  For example, take Stephenie Meyer’s “The Host” in which alien beings take over our human bodies and control them.  These aliens desire only to experience being human and they work and live like we do, but there is no currency.  Any one of these aliens could walk into a store and take anything they wanted.  The point is that they don’t desire anything other than what they need.  Humans desire things.  These aliens would leave the world as it is, with no economic growth.  They would produce everything necessary without trying to discover new technologies and ways to put things together.

In the US doctors get paid to research new cures, new drugs, new advancements in technology to improve the quality of life.  The harder they work, the more they get paid, or if they do it on their own their incentive is the major payoff that comes with that kind of discovery.  Either way there is an incentive for them to work harder and be the one to break through.  People work best when there is an incentive for succeeding, and in our economy that incentive is all of the things one can buy with the money they earn.  Their incentive is having things that they want.

Wanting and desiring things works in our society, and is, in fact, imperative to the operation of our economy. So go out there and help stimulate our economy by wanting things! 

Next week’s topic:  Could you live without electricity for a month?

Pearl

Teacher Evaluations from a College Student

There are as many types of teaching as there are things to teach in this world, and everyone has their own preferences about teaching styles. Being in college, teachers and their various styles have become interesting to me. Personally, I love teachers who let you resubmit an assignment if you didn’t like the grade you got the first time. I enjoy my math class where I am allowed to use a ‘cheat-sheet’ of formulas on the quizzes and tests. I believe that these techniques allow students to be more enthusiastic about classes and learn more.

My first class in the morning is an engineering class. We learn about the tools and techniques that engineers use on a day-to-day basis. Our teacher recently moved here, and I have the impression that he has not taught this class too many times at this college. He is easy-going and allows students to resubmit questions on the tests and quizzes for half credit. Many people took advantage of this and resubmitted answers, even if they would only get a few points back because they already did so well. This allowed students to go over the material again, and try to understand it better. The students learned more than they would have if they hadn’t resubmitted their answers.

The next class that I attend is an Honors class: Macroeconomics. Our teacher is fond of long lectures, and sometimes goes off on tangents about how global warming is a farce, and how the mainstream media doesn’t account for some of the variables that heavily affect our economy today. His tests are short-medium answer questions, and they take the entire class time to work through. His tests are hard, plain and simple. However, each test has extra points built in; to receive an ‘A’ you have to have more than 85 points. 85 points out of 109. He is very passionate about his subject. I had a question after class once, and got drawn into his take on an article that we’d read. He had so much to say about it, and was so glad that we (a classmate and I) were interested. Personally, I prefer a more interactive learning environment. I love an environment where the teacher asks questions and gives points for correct answers. However, having a teacher who is extremely passionate about their subject is nearly the best thing you could ever want in a teacher. If the teacher is enthusiastic, then the students are more likely to be interested in the subject.

My third class is English 102, and is taught by a woman who also teaches high-school I believe. She loves assigning little bits of homework: a sheet about thesis statements, or an is-it-fact-or-opinion worksheet. Nearly every class she assigns little pieces of homework to be done by next class. I must say that I don’t care for this, generally. I much prefer occasional homework and light reading, but doesn’t every student? The value that I see in this method is that students get a feel for her grading style. Is she strict? Does exact wording matter? This type of frequent homework gives the students a sense of what the teacher is looking for.

My fourth and final teacher for this semester is a part-German, part-something-else man who teaches math. He is extremely intelligent, and in addition to teaching here, as well as one other collage close by, he teaches at an air-force base. This man is passionate about math, and how numbers fit together. He teaches us how and why the formulas work. He doesn’t require us to memorize the formulas; we can have a sheet of formulas in tests and quizzes. He believes that we will eventually have to use the formulas often enough that we will know them by heart without forced memorization. He speaks with a somewhat heavy accent, and makes jokes about marriage. He makes us laugh, and helps us to enjoy the class, even though it is more than 2 hours long. He is my favorite teacher of all of the ones I’ve had so far. I look forward to my calculus class every week.

Finally, I am also a teacher. I teach the violin. I try and throw in little facts and pieces of trivia when I’m teaching. Things like how an orchestra can be set up, what the names of the different parts of the instrument are, and stories I’ve heard about composers that my student is playing. I always try to be upbeat. Find something to compliment, and find something that the student is doing really well before pointing out how they could do certain things better.

What do you enjoy in a teacher? What things have you noticed that you like, and what bugs you? Leave a comment about it below so we can see what you think.

Pearl

P.S. Christmas is coming up...can you believe it?  Next week:  Scarcity: Things We Want