Eastergrams!

Here comes my infamous sentence opening: "So, anyways..."

It signifies that I am either distracted and deep in thought on a possibly related topic while I am speaking, or that I am uncomfortable with what immediately preceded and want to emphasize an abrupt transition to another topic. More often than not, the former is the case...However, tonight, it is the latter.

So, anyways...I had absolutely no inspiration to write an entry yesterday, and tonight I am still struggling. If it were not for my deep spiritual frustration and excitement for a reason not even existing in the same half of my brain (as the frustration, just to be clear), I probably would still not be writing at all. So, anyways...Onto the first! Chooray!

So, anyways...It seems as though for the first time I can recall, I have tried my darnedest at something completely realistic that I was committed to and failed utterly at it, losing class credit in the process. Every impression I received from Logic told me it would be a breeze, that it should be a natural skill that I could pick up like I did programming, music composition, and indeed winking. Yet, here I am, near the end of the quarter, and I have been informed by my professor that as far as his bookkeeping is concerned, I've lost all chance of receiving credit for the Logic class. My response: "Dang."

So, anyways...Let me explain a few things before you pass any more judgment than you probably already have...Thank you: My mind is fairly analytical in its function; I can look at a piece of Java code and tell you exactly what problems it will face (beyond it being written in Java), even if the error is in another file I haven't seen yet. The faults are often very logical, predictable failures of the programmer to communicate his or her intent to the machine, and often come from the programmer's inability to keep their entire project and its modules in memory at all times. No offense, people, it's tough to do if the required skills don't come naturally to you, which is why some people are more suited to programming than others. I am able to juggle variables and pointers in my head without a problem, which is why I am such a good programmer.

So, anyways...The "logic" in the Logic class was not entirely what I expected, nor what you might assume it to be based on the name. Very little of it, in my opinion, involved manipulating and analyzing variables to come to truths...And yet, that's exactly what it was composed of. Confused? One word: Proofs. The class revolved around reading, writing, and understanding proofs about operations and theorems relating to logical expressions, for which the logic used was often minimal. Once we proved the theorems, we could use them to prove more! Yey!

So, anyways..."For all x, x implies there exists a y such that x and y." Is that true? Prove it. Small example of what was involved, small example of what I could not accomplish. Speaking with my professor, he explained how similar writing proofs and writing programs are: You are using a strict specified language to explain a process to a non-present observer in both cases, but in the former case the reader is a mathematician and not a computer. The logic (hah) of that argument was extremely compelling, and I wanted to believe it...Unfortunately I found that it was not quite that simple of a translation. I was able to read proofs like code, analyzing the use of different theorems to achieve the end truth, but I failed hopelessly at nearly every attempt at writing one. Either I could not figure out how to proceed, or I proceeded too boldly and failed to show certain steps, or I assumed too much in my mind and so what not able to see what needed to even be proved!

So, anyways...I could not in good conscience turn in an assignment with only half of a problem unsolved, and so several of my homeworks were rendered missing and incomplete...Enough to lose me the potential to even make up the work with an unlikely pass on the final or turn in backlogged papers. I would not even be able to do that anyways, as I still do not know how to write some of the proofs from the first few assignments. Bleah. I give myself up...I'd be hopeless as a mathematician. That occupation now resides below professional golfer, and I hate golf. I'm sure I'd be good at it, but I'm also sure I'm not going to willingly try.

So, anyways...I'm going to have to make up the credits next quarter to graduate. No biggie, so long as I don't fail again. I feel terribly about it all, but one must move beyond the past to conquer the present, as I'm sure someone has said.

So, anyways...Eastergrams! Like Turkeygrams but even less related to the true nature of the holiday they represent! The IMG (Independent Media Group, if I haven't mentioned it before) is going to be orchestrating an attempt to make a name for itself in the world of student groups at Evergreen. We are going to offer interested customers the chance to film a personalized message to be burned on a DVD, with music, graphics, and professional editing to boot. I am developing some draft fliers to advertise, which feature prominently an Easter egg with zippy designs decorating it, as well as formulating a 3D bunny with a basket of eggs and arranging a version of "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" for the messages. It's so corny, but, hey, people have bought worse things. Much worse things. Much.

So, anyways...I'm looking forward to putting those into production soon. We'll have fliers up sometime next week

- Piers

"Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true."
- Betrand Russell