Strangely Silent

So I haven’t been posting much on here for the last few days. That is not because I can’t think of anything to say, I actually have a list of about 6 topics I want to blog about. The problem is that I simply don’t have the time. Why? You’re probably thinking “yeah right, she’s just lazy and doesn’t feel like doing anything.” Actually…

I’ve watched about 6 chemistry videos from Khan Academy. Any videos I watch take a long time because I keep pausing the video to take notes. I also really like the format of the Khan videos, because once I think I understand a concept, when Sal writes down a problem, be it an equation to balance or whatever, then I pause the video and try to work the problem out myself. If I think I have it figured out, I’ll watch the video to make sure my reasoning was correct and the answer right, and if I get stumped, then I can watch the video to see how to do it. It is better than just having questions and answers because I not only get to see the right answer, I understand how you get to that point and why you do it that way. It is very rewarding to be working away at chemistry and then suddenly having something “click” in your mind and then you test your epiphany and sure enough, you got the right answer!

I made some good progress with Khan Geometry too. There’s this exercise called the Angle Game, where you’re given a collection of lines, rays, etc…and you are told the measurement of one or two angles and then are supposed to find some unknown angle. It is, well, slightly addicting, to say the least. It is really fun to do, a good mental challenge for thinking outside the box and trying to visualize all the relationships of the angles.

Also about two-thirds through Nicholas Nickleby. For the longest time it felt like I was making no progress at all, but I hit the halfway point last week and am now somewhere around page 500 of 777. I have a lot of thoughts about the book, but I’ll save that for another time. 🙂

I watched a Western Civilization video on Homer and Archaic Greece. It was like hearing a favorite story all over again and brought back good memories of reading The Odyssey, which is an amazing book. I don’t recommend The Iliad unless you like pages and pages of blood and gore and war and killing and, well, you get the point. The Odyssey was more interesting to me, haha. But I had never realized that the Trojan War story was actually from the Mycenaean period, probably from 1100 B.C. or prior. I had always thought that was an actual Greek story, but it was from before the “Dark Age” and before the Greek culture, as we think of it, existed. Go figure.

I’m reading a book called Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. It is quite interesting. While some think that knowledge is more important than imagination (reference to a long-standing debate I’ve had with some friends over the famous Einstein quote), I tend to think imagination is more important and because it is so odd, elusive, and unpredictable, this book intrigued me. It covers the scientific explanation for creativity, why certain people tend to be more creative, and how to develop your imagination better.

I want to read a couple other books this week, I might get around to it, or they might get pushed out until next week, we’ll see. My plan is to get the majority of my school for this week and next all done this week and take a sort of mini-break next week. If I do get a break, I’ll have time to actually write more blog posts, haha.