It's all Betsy's fault...
I'm up quite late tonight. In fact, I'm typing to help stay awake, because, from the looks of things, I need to stay up for at least another hour (it's 12:40 as I begin this piece).
Why am I complaining, when I've blogged further into the wee hours at least once or twice during my illustrious career, you may be asking?
Because. I'm getting old and grouchy, and have started making genuine efforts to be in bed by 10 or 11 at night instead of being up and about at 1am. Part of this is medical. I've found that I feel much better in the mornings, and throughout the day, if I haven't tired myself out by staying up late the night before. Part of it is habitual. Because I've been making these efforts, I've found that my body starts feeling pretty tired by 11pm, and it takes some work to continue functioning beyond midnight these days.
I must finally admit that my days of college and law school all-nighters are behind me.
Which reminds me:
I studied psychology in college. I found when I was a precocious youngster that I enjoyed analyzing people and telling them what was wrong with them. I also enjoyed the fact that they usually agreed with my opinions. Finally, I enjoyed the whole notion of dream interpretation and would often psycho-analyze my female friends who would describe their dreams to me, convincing them that I was the object of their dreams and hence the object of their affections. Whatever. Anyway, I went to college thinking I'd become a psychologist, and discovered right around the end of freshman year that I was getting in over my head.
Why? Because that's when I took stats.
At one point in my life, I was very good at math. As a 7th grader, I was in the 8th grade class for math (and reading, actually). As an 8th grader, I had to walk over to the high school every morning for math with my old buddy, Aaron. This sort of brilliance continued until my junior year in high school. That year, I took some sort of pre-calc class, and it all fell to pieces. My mind was so warped (I honestly couldn't tell you if the material warped my mind or my teacher's technique did) that, by the end of the year, I could no longer do algebra or multiply and divide fractions. I'm still adept at adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, but that's it folks. Anything more, you might as well stick a fork in me. I'm done.
All this to explain why I hated stats. I had determined, going into college, that I would avoid the hard sciences and the mathematics like the plague. And then, lo and behold, I was forced to do math as part of my major.
Believe me, we are eventually getting to a point that relates to my initial topic. Further, we will soon discover the explanation for the cryptic title to this post. Patience, my friends, is a virtue.
Anyway, I did very, very poorly in stats. I just could not wrap my mind around it at all. I had to work with means, medians, standard deviations -- now, the standard deviation is a concept that still baffles me, even to this day.
So, toward the end of the semester, a giant stats test approached, and I found myself in a study group with some very attractive young girls (which, as a freshman in college, made studying that much more difficult) as we prepped for the test late into the night. Through the night, in fact, and into the wee hours. The wee, wee ones. It was around 4am that, all of a sudden, I discovered that, not only was I nearly falling asleep where I sat, but I also suddenly understood everything I'd ever been taught about statistics. It all made sense, perfect sense. And I was, at the moment, forever prepared for anything the professor threw into that test. I was, at last, a stats genius.
I made the mistake of going to bed. Somehow, sleep shut off that part of my brain which had taken in all that my stats book had to teach, and the next day I was an imbecile again. Have remained so to this day, in fact.
No, I can't pull those all-nighters anymore. And I shouldn't be now.
Here's the problem I'm facing, and the inspiration for my post:
As I've discussed more times than I ought to in the past, I have a nifty MP3 player that my wife bought me for Christmas. The player holds just shy of 20 GB of music, or approximately 3900 songs. It is truly a modern marvel, and has become my constant companion at work, at the gym, or whereever I might go that offers a place where I can just listen to music.
Before I left my vacation, I posted about the MP3 player and all of the fine music I had placed into it. I made the mistake of mentioning that I'd put some Britney Spears on it, and that was when the trouble began.
Betsy, of My Whim is Law fame, wrote me an comment containing the following text: "But...Britney? Say it isn't so...!"
Well, tonight I found myself frustrated that I didn't have certain music on my player, so I started the process of weeding out some stuff I don't listen to much. As I weeded, I would also make a list of music to add. I kept finding I wanted to add more music than I had room for, so I ended up deciding I needed to just yank someone wholesale, even if I liked them. The criteria were simple: it needed to be someone I hadn't bothered listening to yet, who I didn't like as much as the person/people I would be replacing them with. And then I stumbled upon Britney. I remembered Betsy's trite little quote, and I remembered my sheepish embarassment from admitting that I had placed Brit onto my sacred player.
And so, I decided to delete her. I selected everything she performed, and hit delete.
And then IT happened. My computer bogged down. My player was audibly at work, as was my computer, at deleting things. I figured that Britney must've been a bigger cache than I'd thought. I perused a couple of web sites as I waited, and then finally, after many long, tense minutes (I didn't want to shut down the program for fear that I'd lose the list of music I wanted to insert into the player) the computer suddenly came back to life. As I looked, I saw something incredible, amazing, and utterly horrible.
In my attempt to erase Britney, I'd erased everything. My player was now, inexplicably, devoid of music.
So, here I am at 1:06 am, typing away as my player gets re-loaded with music. So far, it has digested about 48% of what I'm placing on it, and it just keeps on gobbling the music up.
But, if it hadn't been for Betsy, I'm quite certain I'd never have had this problem. And so, Betsy, a jinx on your Wednesday.
By the way, what ever happened to stats? Well, I passed it with a D+ or something like that. Then, to graduate, I had to develop and write a thesis where I used statistical analysis to show whether or not my thesis was correct. After writing the thesis, I was required to do an oral defense of it.
I stood there, before three professors, all of whom essentially told me my thesis was only useful for cleansing their backsides should they ever have to poo in the woods. They started asking me stats-related questions. Things like, "if we were to increase this factor, would the median increase or decrease?" I swear, the conversation went as follows:
TP: "Uh, decrease?"
Professor: "Are you sure?"
TP:"Uh, I meant increase."
Professor: "That's right. Can you demonstrate it on that chalkboard?"
TP: "No."
Professor: [Aghast at my insolence] "Why not?"
TP: "Listen, I am not good at math. I am horrible at statistics. If I have a calculator and a statistics book with the formulas in it right in front of me, I can eventually work out the math. But I certainly can't do it for you right now."
Professor: "I see."
TP: "I know my thesis isn't any good."
Professor: "It has problems..."
TP: "But I swear to you, just let me graduate, and I'll go to law school and won't tell anyone that you let me escape this place. That's all I ask."
Professor: "Thank you. Have a nice day. Please invite the next student in."
I ended up getting a C on my thesis. I got a B+ on the thesis defense, and that was the beginning of my trek towards the argument-driven life of a trial lawyer.
Anyway, enough of this. I need to fall asleep; I'm no longer able to watch my computer slowly feed my player. At this very moment, my eyes have stopped focussing, and I think I see a color that hasn't really been invented. And, strangely, stats are starting to make sense again. I must be tired...
And it's all Betsy's fault...
Catch ya later.
Why am I complaining, when I've blogged further into the wee hours at least once or twice during my illustrious career, you may be asking?
Because. I'm getting old and grouchy, and have started making genuine efforts to be in bed by 10 or 11 at night instead of being up and about at 1am. Part of this is medical. I've found that I feel much better in the mornings, and throughout the day, if I haven't tired myself out by staying up late the night before. Part of it is habitual. Because I've been making these efforts, I've found that my body starts feeling pretty tired by 11pm, and it takes some work to continue functioning beyond midnight these days.
I must finally admit that my days of college and law school all-nighters are behind me.
Which reminds me:
I studied psychology in college. I found when I was a precocious youngster that I enjoyed analyzing people and telling them what was wrong with them. I also enjoyed the fact that they usually agreed with my opinions. Finally, I enjoyed the whole notion of dream interpretation and would often psycho-analyze my female friends who would describe their dreams to me, convincing them that I was the object of their dreams and hence the object of their affections. Whatever. Anyway, I went to college thinking I'd become a psychologist, and discovered right around the end of freshman year that I was getting in over my head.
Why? Because that's when I took stats.
At one point in my life, I was very good at math. As a 7th grader, I was in the 8th grade class for math (and reading, actually). As an 8th grader, I had to walk over to the high school every morning for math with my old buddy, Aaron. This sort of brilliance continued until my junior year in high school. That year, I took some sort of pre-calc class, and it all fell to pieces. My mind was so warped (I honestly couldn't tell you if the material warped my mind or my teacher's technique did) that, by the end of the year, I could no longer do algebra or multiply and divide fractions. I'm still adept at adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, but that's it folks. Anything more, you might as well stick a fork in me. I'm done.
All this to explain why I hated stats. I had determined, going into college, that I would avoid the hard sciences and the mathematics like the plague. And then, lo and behold, I was forced to do math as part of my major.
Believe me, we are eventually getting to a point that relates to my initial topic. Further, we will soon discover the explanation for the cryptic title to this post. Patience, my friends, is a virtue.
Anyway, I did very, very poorly in stats. I just could not wrap my mind around it at all. I had to work with means, medians, standard deviations -- now, the standard deviation is a concept that still baffles me, even to this day.
So, toward the end of the semester, a giant stats test approached, and I found myself in a study group with some very attractive young girls (which, as a freshman in college, made studying that much more difficult) as we prepped for the test late into the night. Through the night, in fact, and into the wee hours. The wee, wee ones. It was around 4am that, all of a sudden, I discovered that, not only was I nearly falling asleep where I sat, but I also suddenly understood everything I'd ever been taught about statistics. It all made sense, perfect sense. And I was, at the moment, forever prepared for anything the professor threw into that test. I was, at last, a stats genius.
I made the mistake of going to bed. Somehow, sleep shut off that part of my brain which had taken in all that my stats book had to teach, and the next day I was an imbecile again. Have remained so to this day, in fact.
No, I can't pull those all-nighters anymore. And I shouldn't be now.
Here's the problem I'm facing, and the inspiration for my post:
As I've discussed more times than I ought to in the past, I have a nifty MP3 player that my wife bought me for Christmas. The player holds just shy of 20 GB of music, or approximately 3900 songs. It is truly a modern marvel, and has become my constant companion at work, at the gym, or whereever I might go that offers a place where I can just listen to music.
Before I left my vacation, I posted about the MP3 player and all of the fine music I had placed into it. I made the mistake of mentioning that I'd put some Britney Spears on it, and that was when the trouble began.
Betsy, of My Whim is Law fame, wrote me an comment containing the following text: "But...Britney? Say it isn't so...!"
Well, tonight I found myself frustrated that I didn't have certain music on my player, so I started the process of weeding out some stuff I don't listen to much. As I weeded, I would also make a list of music to add. I kept finding I wanted to add more music than I had room for, so I ended up deciding I needed to just yank someone wholesale, even if I liked them. The criteria were simple: it needed to be someone I hadn't bothered listening to yet, who I didn't like as much as the person/people I would be replacing them with. And then I stumbled upon Britney. I remembered Betsy's trite little quote, and I remembered my sheepish embarassment from admitting that I had placed Brit onto my sacred player.
And so, I decided to delete her. I selected everything she performed, and hit delete.
And then IT happened. My computer bogged down. My player was audibly at work, as was my computer, at deleting things. I figured that Britney must've been a bigger cache than I'd thought. I perused a couple of web sites as I waited, and then finally, after many long, tense minutes (I didn't want to shut down the program for fear that I'd lose the list of music I wanted to insert into the player) the computer suddenly came back to life. As I looked, I saw something incredible, amazing, and utterly horrible.
In my attempt to erase Britney, I'd erased everything. My player was now, inexplicably, devoid of music.
So, here I am at 1:06 am, typing away as my player gets re-loaded with music. So far, it has digested about 48% of what I'm placing on it, and it just keeps on gobbling the music up.
But, if it hadn't been for Betsy, I'm quite certain I'd never have had this problem. And so, Betsy, a jinx on your Wednesday.
By the way, what ever happened to stats? Well, I passed it with a D+ or something like that. Then, to graduate, I had to develop and write a thesis where I used statistical analysis to show whether or not my thesis was correct. After writing the thesis, I was required to do an oral defense of it.
I stood there, before three professors, all of whom essentially told me my thesis was only useful for cleansing their backsides should they ever have to poo in the woods. They started asking me stats-related questions. Things like, "if we were to increase this factor, would the median increase or decrease?" I swear, the conversation went as follows:
TP: "Uh, decrease?"
Professor: "Are you sure?"
TP:"Uh, I meant increase."
Professor: "That's right. Can you demonstrate it on that chalkboard?"
TP: "No."
Professor: [Aghast at my insolence] "Why not?"
TP: "Listen, I am not good at math. I am horrible at statistics. If I have a calculator and a statistics book with the formulas in it right in front of me, I can eventually work out the math. But I certainly can't do it for you right now."
Professor: "I see."
TP: "I know my thesis isn't any good."
Professor: "It has problems..."
TP: "But I swear to you, just let me graduate, and I'll go to law school and won't tell anyone that you let me escape this place. That's all I ask."
Professor: "Thank you. Have a nice day. Please invite the next student in."
I ended up getting a C on my thesis. I got a B+ on the thesis defense, and that was the beginning of my trek towards the argument-driven life of a trial lawyer.
Anyway, enough of this. I need to fall asleep; I'm no longer able to watch my computer slowly feed my player. At this very moment, my eyes have stopped focussing, and I think I see a color that hasn't really been invented. And, strangely, stats are starting to make sense again. I must be tired...
And it's all Betsy's fault...
Catch ya later.
posted by Rusty at 1:21 AM
4 Comments:
I, too, am a mathophobe. My calculating skills were permanently impaired by a Mr. Zarumba (his real name), my 8th grade math teacher. Nothing he said made any sense to anyone. I also had to take stats in college. I got a C. I have no idea how I pulled that off, because I don't think I understood any of it.
That thesis defense scenario sounds like a horrible nightmare. Thank goodness we're done with school.
I hope all your music is restored now. I can't help but think, though, that maybe your computer was having a negative reaction to the Britney and reacted by deleting everything.
I suck at Calc - but I aced Stats in college. I took it as a summer course so I think it was easier - only one class to concentrate on and lots of time by the pool.
That Betsy.
And I'm no where near 5000th yet.
Denise
And So It Goes
Sheesh.
And if I told you to jump off a bridge, would you do that too?
Go right ahead. Blame me for the fact that you're too easily influenced. Insult me, and make it all my responsibility.
(and while you're at it, oh easily influenced one, I'd dearly love one of those iPod Shuffles...)
I might jump if you told me to, depending on how high the bridge was.
I'll start working on the shuffle. Once I talk them down to $10, it's all yours.
Anyway, I over-reacted. I hereby withdraw my hex on your day. Rozanne's point was too good to refute. Except that my computer didn't delete Britney off of itself. It's probably just waiting to shut down one day in a fit of self-loathing...
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