:: p-dog ::

I give you the political leanings of UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy, class of 2007:




Go plot yourself here.

:: Leslie H - 10:09 PM - ::

I am glowing with the enormous satisfaction of crossing something off one's To Do list that's been there for two years. "What, going to grad school?" Bryan guessed, incorrectly.

Today I went to the dentist.

Not only did I get to cross it off the list, but it exceeded expectations in two important ways:
1. It was covered by my phenomenal Berkeley socialized health care.
2. I required no fillings, which is remarkable, for me, particularly considering I haven't had a cleaning in 2.5 years and I can't muster up the energy for much more than a weekly floss.

I'm almost tempted to dig through my things, find all the defunct to do lists I have saved in some inexplicable fit of personal archeological interest, and cross "go to the dentist" off every one of them. I think I'll nip that neurosis in the bud, though, because I have about 120 pages of microeconomics to read. I actually have about 4 times that much reading to do this week, but the half-calculus "Microeconomic Theory" is my only textbook that's arrived.

:: Leslie H - 9:29 PM - ::

The tone gets a little political

I'm afraid the character of puddledog is going to change (less teacher-angst, more references to course material, righteous indignation holding steady). But I'm having two shareable moments here, and what are blogs for if not that?

Oh SNAP

If you haven't read this nytimes article, do. Intelligent design fills me with inarticulate rage. Daniel C. Dennett's rage, however, is quite pithy.

...the proponents of intelligent design use a ploy that works something like this. First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist's work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a "controversy" to teach. Note that the trick is content-free. You can use it on any topic. "Smith's work in geology supports my argument that the earth is flat," you say, misrepresenting Smith's work. When Smith responds with a denunciation of your misuse of her work, you respond, saying something like: "See what a controversy we have here? Professor Smith and I are locked in a titanic scientific debate. We should teach the controversy in the classrooms."

The whole thing is really worth a read.

People are morons...

...is the thesis of one of my first reading assignments for my political analysis class (has the class met? no. do we have homework anyway? yes). In 17 dense pages it analyzes the truly baffling puzzle of why the 2001 tax cuts were so wildly popular even though most people were net losers. It includes a lot of statistics and research and blah blah blah, but here he makes the point sans numbers:

Millions of citizens say that the federal government should spend more on a wide variety of programs, that the rich are asked to pay too little in taxes, and that the growing economic inequality is a bad thing. Yet they simultaneously support policies whose main effects will be to reduce the tax burden of the rich, constrain funding for government programs, and exacerbate growing economic inequality.

The whole thing supports what many of us have long believed: the only smart Republicans are rich ones. [In fairness, I must add that Democrats are also idiots, but more so the party than the people.]

:: Leslie H - 9:44 PM - ::

First Day of School (2nd to last)

My last summer vacation slipped away from me at the end. Math camp and orientation eased me gradually back into being busy all the time. I think part of me that didn't believe I was done with teaching was waiting to move back to San Jose and start setting up my classroom, so starting school in earnest tomorrow is taking me a little by surprise.

I had also forgotten what it's like to begin something without terrible nerves.

3 thoughts
I am sick of small talk but like my classmates.
I am already losing my teacher jargon but replacing it with economics-speak ("that beer gives me some serious utils").
I am intimidated by the year's workload but believe that nothing, ever, will be as hard as the first year of teaching.

:: Leslie H - 7:00 PM - ::

A (TFA) friend of mine, comparing this, his first week in law school, to his first week teaching 7th grade: "It's very similar, but this week I don't feel like I'm gonna puke."

:: Leslie H - 4:49 PM - ::

Sunday morning paper

Spot the most interesting fact in this article about how the bottom's going to fall out of our real estate market, just like it did in 17th century Amsterdam:

"On the Herengracht, those returns have often been fantastic for 25 or even 50 years at a time. Home prices soared in the first half of the 17th century, around the time of the tulip mania. But they came crashing down in the 1670's, when the prime minister was killed, and partially eaten, by a mob of angry Dutch, and the country nearly disintegrated. Prices lagged inflation during the Napoleonic wars but surged after William became king in 1814 and the country industrialized."

It was just waiting, hidden in an innocuous paragraph in a dry article, to make you snort rice krispies through your nose.

(Thanks, nytimes.)

:: Leslie H - 8:17 AM - ::

Math gets hard

Here, have an equation. I don't know what it is, but I'm supposed to be using it.
P(n,s) = n!/(n-s)!s! [(pi)(s)^s(pi)(~s)^(n-s)]

Latest professor quote, as he did an example problem after class had technically ended: "And now I can calculate it! And since you're all sticking around as though you'd like to be victimized in just that way, let's do it!"

:: Leslie H - 9:43 AM - ::

I am sitting in 8th grade math class. I am (re)learning rules of exponents. That's right: I'm a student again. Glory hallelujah. (Even if that means I must know that a to the p over q equals the qth root of a to the p.)

Yesterday was my first day of school. I arrived somewhat red-faced and sweaty from my fast hike up the hill to my building but was immediately consoled by hearing about my classmates' hour-long bus rides or bus-to-BART-to-bus trips or harrowing parking searches. I remain in love with where we live.

I was anxious to meet my fellow GSPPers. At least a couple of times, when I have told people my fall plans, they have responded, "Oh, I know someone in that program!" and then gotten this pained look on their face like, I don't want to say something bad, but they have zero social skills and a face full of acne. I knew I didn't need to find soulmates in the program, thanks to all my TFA friends still in the area, but I didn't really want to be surrounded by socially inept trolls for two years.

Of course my worries were needless. It's a very normal, pleasant bunch. We are about 70% female--thank god I'm not mate-shopping. Meeting people has been very much like meeting your 4th grade class, or TFA corps, and little like meeting people in college. You introduce yourself with the knowledge that you will be spending at least the next year together, doing new and challenging things. The person you're meeting might be a study partner, or a member of a group project, or at the very least a face you'll see 3-5 days of the week. In the early stages of TFA, we joked about making t-shirts for everyone listing their: names, place of origin, college they went to, and teaching assignment, since that is how every conversation began. Here it's different. Most people are not just out of undergrad, so where you went to school doesn't come up in the beginning. Our first topics of conversation include: when you arrived in Berkeley and where you were coming from; whether/where you've found housing; exchanging tips for getting parking permits, student IDs, CA drivers licenses, etc; how long it took you to get here this morning. Maybe, maybe what you've been doing for the last few years and what brought you to the Bay ("the weather! --and, you know, it's a really good program.")

The math review itself (Math Camp!) seems very well-organized/run. Yesterday we did math grades 1-7. It was very elementary, but it was good to be reminded of things, and I think the professor wanted to calm our anxiety about doing math for the first time in x years. Today, grade 8. Wednesday - Friday is high school math, and next week is all calculus. It's actually been kind of fun, considering I'm sitting in a room listening to a math lecture for 3 hours.

Today's topics:
Rules of exponents
Laws of algebra
Algebra
Polynomials
Operations on polynomials and algebraic fractions
Factoring
Quadratic formula

Our professor on the reflexive property (a=a): "I think it's wonderful that there are such properties. When existential fear and doubt grip my soul at night, I can return to such fundamentals."

:: Leslie H - 9:16 AM - ::

I do not post because nothing is going on. Bryan and I are revelling in glorious sloth, spending time in our new apartment and city so they'll begin to feel like home.

I am updating the "currently cooking" and "currently reading" sections, however, since that's what I'm spending the bulk of my time doing. This is paradise.

:: Leslie H - 3:12 PM - ::

My visitors are gone. My sight-seeing tours of the Bay are finished, and I have two solid pages of To Do list items (really exciting stuff, like "order new checks" and "wash car").

Bryan returns tonight from his graphics conferences. In addition to his diatribe against crutches, I expect to hear about many exciting breakthroughs in the world of computer animation. And hopefully he'll sit still for a day and let the crutch-bruises on his hands heal.

That's about all that's going on until 8/15, when math camp starts and I meet my classmates. I plan to do just as many To Dos as I need to feel remotely productive, and then loaf like there's no tomorrow.

[pics from Delia's visit are on gallery]

:: Leslie H - 11:30 AM - ::