- Teaching a fascinating and well-informed group of students. The ‘Evolution of Human Language’ class is heading for its third lecture out of four. And in the ‘Language and Communication’ class, I teach 220 of UWA’s best and brightest.
- Arguing with creationists. I must say, I was disappointed. Their best argument was “Well, if there’s no God, then who’s going to resurrect me after I die? Huh? Answer me that, Mister Smarty-Pants! You can’t just resurrect yourself!” I had to admit, their logic was irrefutable.
- Doing The Thesis. A difficult and time-consuming ritual, about as productive as debating creationists, but somehow more worthwhile.
- Learning the finer points of MarioWorld DS from the boys. This has an advantage over the Thesis in that results are consistent and progress is easy to measure.
What have you been doing lately?
21 March 2007 at 5:40 am
One of those 220 is my sister, only don’t go looking for redheads, she looks nothing like me. I’m sure I’m adopted. Everyone else in my family is brown-skin, brown hair and they don’t get burnt, they tan. Grrr.
I’ve started my own experiment on anxiety and test performance with the research proposal and ethics application due Friday.
I’ve been invited to sing with St George’s Cathedral Choir on Good Friday and choir rehearsals are great fun at the moment. We’re doing Vivaldi Gloria and Mozart Vespers, only I’m singing at rehearsals but playing in the concert.
Considering postgrad at the moment and it looks like I’ll be out of WA in 2009 or so to do MA in Music Therapy in either Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, unless the new professor in the music dept here decides to introduce something similar here.
A lot of procrastination too. For more, see http://smashus.blogspot.com
– Ash
21 March 2007 at 10:46 am
Ash: on a really bizarre note, while I has sitting outside the tute room waiting for my own linguistics tutorial to begin this arvo, I heard someone ask Daniel if he knew of an Ashleigh Ellson as she was leaving the tutorial this afternoon. I’m sure this will lead to some kind of “Perth is small” revelation …
21 March 2007 at 2:11 pm
Final Fantasy XII came out just as semester started. ’nuff said.
Aside from that I’ve been volunteering as a guinea pig at Graylands…
21 March 2007 at 3:39 pm
Yes, the sister did say hello after class today, and yes, she looks nothing like you.
Final Fantasy XII: Really the Final This Time. Has everyone else made a joke about that, or am I the first?
22 March 2007 at 1:07 am
Well, I’ve been on a weekend trip to Edinburgh, a day trip to Oxford (where I completely fell in love with the university’s natural history museum), not doing enough work on a TESOL essay, more than enough phonetics work, also thinking about postgrad courses (MSc in speech and language processing is looking like a winner) and most interestingly spent some of tonight talking religion with a couple of Latter Day Saints on their mission.
One of my American friends over here had them foisted upon her by her well meaning (and atheist) mom, so I decided to go round and represent the skeptical atheist corner. I was genuinely interested in what they would have to say as I haven’t ever spoken to an evangelist before. I spent the hour politely asking questions that they didn’t answer anywhere near adequately enough, but which I hope made them think.
They caught my interest when they mentioned that they even have evidence of God’s word – the golden tablets. So of course I had to ask, “Ok, that’s great you have evidence, where are these golden tablets now?” “Oh they’re hidden away” “Ok, so you don’t actually have evidence then?” “They were translated into The Book of Mormon, it’s all here. Because you know, there are two sides, there is the evidence side of things, and then there’s the other side… um…” turns to the young guy with the ‘elder’ badge “what’s the other… um…” “Faith” “Yeah, that’s right, there is the evidence and then there is faith”. I couldn’t help but smile at him forgetting faith of all things.
Another interesting moment was when one of the guys was answering the catholic flatmate’s questions about why their religion is the ‘right’ one, and finished his argument with such conviction – “and that’s God’s word, and you can’t argue with that!” to which I had to reply “Well, yeah you can!”.
I don’t really think the poor fellas had much luck as my friend and I are both very atheist and skeptic, one flatmate was a non practising catholic, and the other flatmate was undecided, but after I told her science was in fact a very fulfilling and wondrous way to find out about the world, she asked me to write down the name of Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World so she could read it over the easter break. One point to logic and reason!
I’m glad I went because it was a real eye opener to how intensely they believe in their religion, which is something I never came across in Australia. I just want to say Daniel that I have a lot of respect for you, critically examining your beliefs and coming to the conclusion you did. I don’t think I’d have the balls to do that if had been raised in a devout religious family. Another of my friends here (three of my closest friends here are American and atheist, what are the chances?) was bought up Baptist and became an atheist in his late teens. I just can’t even imagine the turmoil that must be involved in making such a decision. I find it hard enough that my father isn’t particularly supportive of me trying to get a university education.
Anyway, that was my eye-opener for the day, I figured this was an appropriate place to share it 😀
Take care, and remember that the interaction you get out of your students is a direct reflection of your teaching methods!
22 March 2007 at 5:30 am
I bet that was my sister. I think she had her tute yesterday sometime. But she won’t play be playing Boggle with Daniel anytime soon.
Which reminds me, have you got an office of your own yet?
22 March 2007 at 7:18 am
No.
kel: Sounds like quite the chat! I imagine someday I’ll find myself having just such a conversation with the elders.
I haven’t read The Demon Haunted World yet, but I’ve often thought about the title. Someone will say something about spirits or mysterious forces, and I’ll think, ‘Ah, they’re in the demon-haunted world.’
Taking the Road to Reality has entailed some costs. But I’ve been very lucky. My family, though disappointed, has still been very loving so far, and my friends from church are still friendly. I think its part that they’re genuinely good people, and part because I’ve considered this so carefully and can explain my reasoning. If you don’t believe in the demon-haunted world and you’re considering going public, it can be very scary, but it can go well.
22 March 2007 at 8:55 am
Hi all,
Jumped in a bit late on this one, haven’t I?
You know what is really frightening? When you write a sentence like the one above and start analysing and pulling it apart in your mind. How on earth do linguists live with themselves!? aaahhh!
SO busy right now with uni, work etc… one day soon I might drop by your non office and have a chat
🙂
By all reports LING1101 is the place to be this year! I have met at least 10 of the 220 and they all think that you are very funny and intelligent. Don’t worry, I set them straight 😉
22 March 2007 at 9:39 pm
Mostly I have been thinking and preparing for the two new loves in my life. (reminds me, if you can send me some links on the STEP program you’ve talked about I would appreciate it)
I’ve been trying to pick up as much Cantonese as I can and learning about the culture, customs and history of the Guangzhou area so we don’t come across as the typical American idiots. Or at least minimize that perception. (ngo sik zaai.) Not really but I may use that depending on whats on my plate. It’s much more difficult than Spanish so I hope they just appreciate the effort. (most people do).
My work has been leading the way in the use of the aes encryption algo for database field encryption of private data in IBM systems (mainframes, iSeries servers etc.) and it has been fun learning about how that works and thinking about the best ways to implement the algo for different purposes. For example we are using a 256 bit counter mode method for field level data base encryption right now because it allows us to return the cypher text at the same field length as the plaintext data but we use a 128 bit block mode method for backup tapes because there the game is speed and thats the fastest method that is still secure. We were also able to design a multi-threading process that has allowed us to achieve the same speed (almost) as the native IBM backup commands that don’t have encryption depending on the number of processors the system has.
There is a neat little flash animation on wikipedia for the aes algo I think you might enjoy.