Daily Connotations

Daily Connotations

Entropy Happens.
Join the madness.

You don't have to push the boundaries when you set the standards.

Connotation. 1. a. The configuration of suggestive or associative implications consitiuting the general sense of an abstract espression beyond its literal, explicit sense. b. A secondary meaning suggested by a word in addition to its literal meaning. 3. Logic The total of the attributes constituting the meaning of a term.

Observations, opinions, and ideas, all brought to you by Daily Connotations Company. Who Else?

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Disclaimer: Any opinions contained on this page are those of, well, we don't really know who. Any offense taken to anything present should be directed to Sven, who will file and ignore your comments. Praise or compliments can be directed to either Dr. N, Dr. What, or Dr. Olga. All plagarized material has been tested and deemed satisfactory according to the esteemed code of Lehrer, version 2.3.
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Things We Like

Sven Bjorn Borg: Sven has been with d-con since its humble beginnings, and is responsible for punctuating, finances, guarding the office from rabid dogs and loud noises, and acting as mediator amongst the other members. Dr. Borge is well-known as the world's foremost (and perhaps only) underwater-basket-weaving expert. Sven has recently published no less than 3 books, Klingon Grammar and Vocabulary for humans, Life among the Grapes, and Escher, Bach, Gödel: A gigantic elastic bungalow. In it's copious spare time, the Sven enjoys playing the harpsichord and diagramming sentences. Sven is Chief of Staff and Director of Intelligence in the UPICN,LLC.
Dr. Bob William "The Orange" Lavoisier a.k.a. Dr. Henry Parsons: Dr. N, as we like to call him, is officially the initiator of the Daily Connotations Company, and also holds important Offices in the VVIIPP society of America and The Department of Redundancy Department, which is a place where he holds an important office in the department of redundancy. Henry also spent a good deal of his life studying the behavior of Walruses (Walri?) in the wild, inspired by a long-running correspondence with Mr. J. Lennon, who, in fact, convinced "The Orange" that he was, in fact, a walrus. Dr. Parsons' curriculum vitae is rounded out by his extensive family history (including a brother, Alan), and double Ph.D. honors in Botany and the Study of Scandinavian Languages. Recently, Dr. Henry Parsons was elected president of the UPICN,LLC
The Doctor a.k.a. Dr. What??: Dr. What joins us now as a member of d-Con in very good standing. It is important that the doctor not be confused with his slightly-more-popular brother, Doctor Who, who has carved a niche for himself in the field of time travel. Dr. What never developed the talent for time travel, and has the ability to visit only two distinct temporal locations: The beheading of John the Baptist and that one time when Stanley met Livingstone (or was it Livingstone met Stanley?) Consequently, he spends much of his time knitting (the scarves, natch) on the planet Gallifrey whilst (and at the same time) contemplating Nietzschean philosophies and memorizing much of Immanuel Kant's work, both in the original German.
Dr. Phelealabean: Dr. Phelealabean also uses the alias Dr. Olga Olathe Parsons-Uhlmer. Dr. Parsons-Uhlmer is a sister to Henry and Alan. She has a dual honorary doctorate in Arabian Literature and Language. She also has teaching experience at the University of Rekjavik which was held in a small grass-covered hut. She iswidowed after an incident involving her husband and abandonment which she is not allowed to discuss pending criminal charges. Now that she is alone, she enjoys spending summers with her brother, Henry, in his summer home, The Parsonon.

3.02.2004

Teaching and learning. . .

The thought of living without learning is hardly even fathomable to me. . . I am madly in love with knowledge, with the thought of how things work, why things work, where the pieces fit together.

Thusly, the fact that I don't particularly care for school is interesting to me. Quite honestly, I don't believe that the system that has been developed to "eddykate" everyone is the most efficient or the most effective.

The process by which we accumulate and organize information is fascinating, especially because somehow our brains are sensitive enough to do this process invisibly - we don't consiously notice how we learn things (unless we are trying to - which isn't totally possible - consider Gšdel's Incompleteness Theorem - no system can observe itself)

For me, the time when I can see most clearly into my mental processes is in that grey area between waking and dreams. . .Words, sounds, emotions, concepts, smells, colors, memories. . .all fly in and out of my mind, not bound by syntax or grammar. This experience - removing the structure of thought (which I believe is not inherent) and leaving only the concepts in their sweetest, purest forms - and presumably in the order in which they should most naturally fall.

I can not remember exactly what goes on - the actof observing (that is, becoming aware of) the dream seems to make it fall apart.

But back to school - I love teaching people things. The look in their eyes when they finally "get it" is worth however many hours of effort we put in to get there. I only teach people who want to learn - who are driven by their own desire rather than some superficial motivation. I usually teach people in one-on-one or small group sessions - presenting something to a large group, while it may be beneficial for some, loses the magic because I don't get to see the individual responses and the personal growth that occurs.

In some ways, my teaching ability comes from an ability to fit concepts - fascinating philosophical or mathematical or religious or . . .you know. . concepts into language that connects with a person. While I can throw off an essay like this one with big intimidating words in about fifteen minutes (while doing a physics assignment, reading the news, and fixing supper. I also juggle, ride the unicycle, and walk the tightrope on occasion) , I can also take a concept and present it in a way that normal people - or "verbally-challenged" people can still understand. Sometimes it takes two or three tries - different analogies, connections, approaches to the concept. But with patience, time, and cooperation (not just him with me - the cooperation must be mutual) we eventually get there.

I may teach somewhere, someday. I certainly wouldn't write it out of my life for good. But I don't want to enter the "ed biz".

I feel sorry for my as-of-now non-existent children. They'll probably end up as guinea pigs!

--Posted by s. on Tuesday, March 02, 2004.