Efficient Wanderer
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Well?:
How was Edinburgh? Did you get up Arthur's Seat? I regretted not doing that but I was sick when I went. Stupid cough. Congrats on your graduation also!
Sunday, June 06, 2004
On climbing:
On Saturday, Will, Sudeep and I went to Starved Rock State Park, downstate a couple of hours from Chicago. The park itself consists of miles of paths, most of which are generally the sort of over-marked, boring things designed to protect the state park district of Illinois from lawsuits.
However, if you look a bit, there are infinitely cooler paths, beaten by others who hated the park ranger's processed paths as much as we did. Sure, technically using these cooler paths isn't 'legal' in the strictest sense of the word (since the park did have big signs threatening various punishments for those who ventured off the marked trails), but clearly we weren't the first. So we spent an afternoon scrambling up cliff faces and pulling ourselves up sandy mountains with giant tree roots, choosing places where we probably wouldn't die if we fell, though possibly convincing old ladies otherwise.
Will raised an interesting question, though. Would this have been as fun if it were legal? I was pretty sure not, though I was never afraid of being caught, so I don't think we could have felt that sort of thrill. I think it was more because had the climbing we did been legal, we would have known that it was perfectly safe. No state park is going to let a couple of dumb kids climb up a cliff without making damn sure that it's as safe as walking a level path of raked gravel. So we were courting danger a bit, but not the danger of getting caught; rather, we were in danger of hurting ourselves, a much more satisfying thrill.
This is tied into why roller coasters don't really do it for me. I'm not particularly afraid of heights or speed, and I know that riding in a roller coaster is about a hundred times safer than driving a car down the interstate. Why should I find it thrilling, then? My thrills need to involve some sort of fear, that moment when the horse I'm galloping loses his stride for half a second and I wonder if he and I care going to fall in some desperate mix of human and half a ton of horse, that moment when I'm windsurfing (which I haven't done in far too long) and I hit the funny wave and go under and my board's over me and I have to struggle to the surface, or that moment when I'm climbing a cliff and realise that my footing's precarious and I can't see a good way up from there, but I can't go back down either. I can't feel that way on a perfectly safe roller coaster.
Friday, April 09, 2004
answers:
i don't know. ultimately with me right now, my number one criterion is that it have a job for me. i tried to think about cities i've loved, and why i've loved them and it seems to come down to whether i like walking around there. if the streets are interesting, if i feel like i can see something new and surprising around every corner (like the awesome pigeon fight i saw today, i guess), then i'll probably be pretty happy there. if i could choose, i'd require good public transportation, interesting architecture, a grocery store with good meat near my house, good cheap persian restaurants, and the ocean or at least a decent size river nearby. but i'm happy pretty much anywhere, so i'm not terribly picky.
i don't know. you oculd try asking about math parties to see whether they exist, i guess.
don't i know it. lets make the drive back from st. louis on sat night even worse...
Friday, March 26, 2004
nuns
yeah, it must have been nun's weekend out or something. i saw three at the point taking pictures and being very cute. i was surprised since they had a pretty close to full habit. unusual.
Friday, March 19, 2004
stalking and such
very strange. and scary. and w. thinks i'm too paranoid about the blog (i think one of my professors reads it. a little scary). i went to dinner with the two roommates from london and some loyola people and one of the roommates started quizzing me about the blog. like, i hear you have a cat? and starting that paper a little late, yes? anonymity is the way to go.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
yeah, i guess. it turns out that the girl added the class late and so gave me a bunch of homework. now, she couldn't have added the class after fifth week, which was six weeks ago, so i'm not sure i buy that as an excuse. and i'm not sure i know what problems were assigned to grade them. i think i'll email craig and see if he says i have to grade it. and ordinarily i would turn the grades in on time (and i'm going to try to) but we just got the homeworks on monday and i do have finals. i think one of the other ta's convinced him that we could have till friday.
glad you liked yale. and hey, chicago isn't an example of urban blight! houston isn't exactly urban either, just suburban blight.
Monday, March 15, 2004
three philosophical questions
if you were only going to turn in one homework one quarter, would it be the one due on the day of the final? and if the person you're taing for (is there a better title?) says he wants the grades by wednesday, how set in stone do you think that is?
