Bellwether (Book)

Hair-bobbing. Fads. Sheep. Bellwethers. Chaotic Systems. Scientific Discoveries. Paperwork. Aversion Trends. Personal Ads.

Bellwether is the type of Connie Willis novel I have come to love. This short novel is funny and made me think. It is well-written and has enjoyable characters. Bellwether was nominated for the 1997 Nebula Award. While the novel is about science, it is not what I think of as “science fiction.” It is primarily about fads and about scientific discoveries.

Very briefly, Sandra Foster and Bennett O’Reilly work for the research company HiTek, which is out of touch with its employees and manages by paperwork. Sandra is a sociologist who is researching what triggers fads. More specifically, she is trying to find the person or event that started the fad of women cutting their hair in the bob style. Not only has she hit an intellectual wall in her project, but she is also being thwarted by her assistant Flip, an incorrigible young woman. Through a series of mishaps, Sandra befriends Bennett, a man who is immune to trends. They collaborate on a learning experiment that uses sheep as subjects. Chaos ensues.

I liked this story a lot. I was laughing aloud for much of it. The subject of trends is one that is near and dear to my heart. As Sandra deals with the ever-changing trends of restaurants, my taste buds and tummy are often frustrated by the ever-changing trends at the grocery store. I also like the discussion of the role of chaos in scientific discovery. (I am going to include some of my favorite quotes in my next post.)

Bellwether is the third novel is the omnibus Future Imperfect.

Stupid vs. Intelligent People (Quote)

I found this quote in The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson and needed to share it:

…the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.

Second Tai Chi Class of the Semester

Matching Another Person’s Pace.

Again this week our Tai Chi instructor, Bob, had us pay attention to our bodies as we did the Tai Chi form: the small movements our hands made, the alignment of our backs, the twisting of our bodies, the micro-movements within the major movements of the form.

Somehow I managed to find a spot on the far right hand side of the group. There are a couple of people who are bit rusty, so they had me to watch when they forgot sections. The only problem was that I tend to rush through the form when I practice at home. When we turned to the right, I couldn’t see Bob and could only see a few other people out of the corner of my eye when I needed to check how far along we were in the sequence. My mind tried to problem-solve. Shouldn’t I be able to gauge myself with my breath? Was I out of cadence with the group? With Bob? On a number of occasions in the past, he has said that some of the issues we encounter in Tai Chi apply to other aspects of our lives. I thought about how in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP),  pacing is an important factor in developing rapport with another person. Is the universe nudging me to pay more attention to my pacing in relationships? Or, do I just tend to rush through the form?

I again have plenty of ideas to work on when I practice this week and beyond. Unless the weather changes from the current reports, I am not going to wait for the bus in the frigid cold and turn into a studentcicle next week. I instead plan to be under an electric blanket, reading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series—oh, and practicing at home later in the day.

Kata’s 2010 Reflections

2010 was one of the most interesting years of my life, not the best or most successful or happiest, but one of the most interesting. For me interesting is a positive thing, a reason for getting up in the morning, a reason for putting one foot in front of the other and living each day. Almost everything that happened was unexpected. Maybe I just put the interesting vibration out into the universe.

In early spring I sent my cousin a very emotional e-mail about all the things that were going wrong in my life. One of my last sentences was asking whether I could do work for him, any work, just to try to stay sane. Coincidentally, he was in the process of submitting a proposal for a self-paced training course. I’ve been writing training materials for a long time, but I didn’t know anything about federal laws and how industrial air pollution is controlled. In addition, much to my cousin’s chagrin, I managed to earn a master’s degree without every taking a physics course. So, I immersed myself in the content I received from my cousin as well as practically everything I could find on the Internet. Because I love to learn, this was sheer happiness.

In late spring, I was an enumerator for the 2010 Census, not particularly successful financially, but a great way to meet fascinating people. One of my favorites was an 80+ year old owner of a massive apartment complex, who told me her secrets for keeping young. Because the apartments were close to a medical college, I was also able to chat with young adults from various countries.

In June, bored with what I was reading, I decided to begin to read Hugo award winning novels, 50 years worth of novels, a goal that is going to take me well into the middle of 2011. Each novel makes me think, some more than others. Each novel enlarges my view of the world and of how writers express themselves through words. In addition, I have been exposed to more science. Those concepts I learned while working on the air pollution course have reappeared in a number of the novels.

My blogs have been a source of fascination for me. At the beginning of the year, I set out to write 50 entries in Kata Chimes In and 100 entries in Kata’s Cadence. Little did I know that I would have a small religious crisis and have almost no motivation to write in the second blog, which I associated with my participation in a particular church. In autumn I noticed someone had accessed my New Year’s Resolution post, so I reread it. I am not a person who takes goals lightly. For the last three months of the year, I wrote a poem, blessing, prayer or affirmation almost every morning. Who could ask for a better education? I learned about myself, about writing, and about my readers.

In fall, I went back to taking Tai Chi classes after a two year break. This was one of the hardest and most rewarding semesters for me. Because this was an advanced class, the emphasis was on internal awareness, an area that most of us have little training in. Sure, I could do the form, but do the form while trying to feel my heart beat?

Throughout the year, my thoughts about how I perceive people have changed. Enumerating for the Census forced me outside my comfort zone. Books like The Cow In The Parking Lot by Leonard Scheff and Susan Edmiston, Yoga for Anxiety by Mary NurrieStearns and Rick NurrieStearns, The Miracle of Right Thinking by Orison Swett Marden and The Learning to Love Yourself Workbook by Gay Hendricks helped change the way I look at myself and the world.

For Christmas, I decided to make some Christmas ornaments based on a design in the book Diane Fitzgerald's Shaped Beadwork. I loved how my brain twisted in little knots when I tried to think three-dimensionally. Last night I tried a different pattern in preparation for making a gift for myself (and maybe next year’s Christmas presents). I just didn’t get it, and then all of a sudden, later in the evening, it clicked.

The year contained hundreds of other fascinating things, including farmers’ markets I didn’t know about, new recipes, things from my parents and my childhood that I still am finding as I clean out the house. Today my neighbor-sister took me to a Hispanic grocery store, and I didn’t want to leave. This year, I have been like a little kid, filled with wonder.

I am afraid of 2011. I realized that as I debated whether to try my hand at writing a New Year’s blessing. I like small changes, but don’t like major upheavals. This coming year has a high probability for major upheavals. The New Thought writers talk a lot about faith, and I think the coming year will require me to depend upon it more than in recent years.

Ms. Chumlig’s Wisdom (Rainbows End)

In Rainbows End, a science fiction book by Vernor Vinge set in the near future, Ms. Chumlig is a teacher at Fairmont High, a sort of tech school for not so successful teenagers and for older adults. (See My November 29th Blog on Rainbows End.) Although she is fictional, her wisdom is relevant to adults in the real-life job market today.

The first bit of advice could come straight out of a Seth Godin book or blog entry:

Some of you think your hand in life is all deuces and treys. But I have a theory of life and it is straight out of gaming. There is always an angle. You, each of you, have some special wild cards. Play with them. Find out what makes you different and better. Because it is there, if only you can find it. And once you do, you’ll be able to contribute answers to others and others will be willing to contribute back to you. In short, synthetic serendipity doesn’t just happen. By golly, you must create it.

After talking with my fifth grade teacher hostess on Thanksgiving, I am convinced that most middle-aged and older adults could use some classes to update their skill sets:

Administration has changed a lot—Okay. So we have to learn some new tricks—Yes …That’s an important point. This class is about search [web searching] and analysis, the heart of the economy. We obviously need search and analysis as consumers. In almost all modern jobs, search and analysis are how we make out living. But, in the end, we must also know something about something.

Thanksgiving Conversation (Evolution of Fifth Graders)

The hostess at our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday was a fifth grade teacher, who has been teaching elementary school students for over three decades. In between eating wonderful food, including a chocolate pumpkin bread pudding that was so good that it must have come down from heaven, she told me that fifth graders are biologically different than they were when she started teaching school.

The discussion started with food allergies. Years ago a teacher might have a couple of kids who had to be watched so that they didn’t eat peanuts. In recent years, children have become more sensitive to allergens and more children are affected. My hostess described some of the precautions that the teachers now have to take, including making sure that they don’t have peanut residue on their hands when they correct papers.

Later on my hostess described some of the changes that she has made in her classroom. She has gotten rid of the desks and traditional chairs and replaced them with beanbag chairs and stability balls, with the kids using lap desks. The small movements required for children to balance on the balls help them to focus. I have heard this before with regard to kinesthetic learners and some hyperactive kids. She continued talking about how because kids are exposed to so much digital media, especially computers, their brains are physically different from earlier generations. They process information differently. She explained that schools need to adapt their teaching methods to these changes.

All this from Thanksgiving dinner with extended family! Oh, and I ate pickled watermelon rind for the first, and hopefully not last, time.

Simplicity

When I was working on my bachelor’s degree, my advisor in the English department wrote articles for fishing magazines. He often didn’t receive the respect he deserved from the other instructors and professors in the department who were more erudite or, in some cases, blatantly pretentious. He instilled in me the importance of telling a simple story.

I was thinking about him this morning as I was trying to edit and add activities to a course about a piece of technology. So much content! So many technical points! My mind wanted to go into overdrive. But I realized that it didn’t have to be that way. Our learners want and need to hear a simple story. It might have technical aspects. It might involve math and physics. But it is still a story. All I need to do is write it, step by step.

Preparing for the Future

I am rereading Love by Leo Buscaglia and found this wonderful quote about education and the future.

It isn’t enough to live and learn for today. We have to dream about what the world is going to be like in fifty years and educate for a hundred years hence and dream of a world a thousand years hence….Look at how our world has changed. No wonder we are confused and up tight and anxious—we were not prepared to deal with the world we are living in. And it’s moving so fast!

Learning

I find this quote from The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein thought provoking:

The books and charts are just the means to hold on to what you learn, in a way that makes it easier for others to learn from you. They’re a way to add up learning, to accumulate it past your own lifetime….Facts, ideas fit together. It’s the fitting, the paths that connect them, that matters. The pieces can change, but the fitting lies beneath it all. The world is made of such fittings.

More Than Just a Trip to the Beach

I just finished reading A Trip to The Beach by Melinda Blanchard, who is a wonderful storyteller. She describes how she and her husband fell in love with the island of Anguilla, opened a restaurant there, and lived through Hurricane Luis, which destroyed much of Anguilla. After finishing the book, I was curious about the Blanchards, their restaurant, and whether Hurricane Luis really hit after the restaurant’s first year. After doing an internet search, I was delighted to see a picture of the restaurant that looked very much like the picture in my mind. I enjoyed reading about some of the employees that I had read about in the book. I confirmed that while Blanchard took some liberties in the book with details, the dates of the opening of Blanchard’s restaurant and of Hurricane Luis were accurate.

The book provided me with more than just an enjoyable escape. It also provided me with an opportunity to learn and, I’ve now discovered, to keep my brain young.

An article from Reuters on the Internet described an interesting study.

“Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles studied people doing Web searches while their brain activity was recorded with functional magnetic resonance imaging scans.’What we saw was people who had Internet experience used more of their brain during the search,’ Dr. Gary Small, a UCLA expert on aging, said in a telephone interview. This suggests that just searching on the Internet may train the brain -- that it may keep it active and healthy," said Small, whose research appears in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.”

Perhaps a book isn't just something to read. Perhaps it is an invitation to explore something new.