Well, I wanted to make this a more coherent post, but I couldn’t think of how to make it that way. I haven’t finished any books recently, so I can’t do a book review. And I can’t think of some controversial subject I need to argue about, haha. So instead I’ll just talk about some of the things I’ve been doing and learning recently…
I was a little shocked to discover that in my Khan Geometry course I was expected to do algebra! I thought I had left x far behind, but sadly, not. So…I had to do a ton of algebra problems this week. I was pleased that my skills slowly returned and I could figure out how to find that dratted x. I’m hoping it will get more geometry-like very soon though!
I’m currently obsessed with chemistry which seems to be the most fascinating thing ever. It is amazing, considering that I attempted to use a normal chemistry textbook back in high school but gave up after a chapter or two because it was so confusing, irrelevant, and well, boring. But Khan makes it uber-interesting. I don’t get all of the technical conversion info, like “If you have 500 grams of water at 60 degrees, how much -10 degree ice will you need to add to make the water 0 degrees?” I get the point and the intuition of why you do what you do, but I don’t have a need to actually do these kinds of problems and even if I figure it out, I’ll probably forget in 6 months anyways. But things like Van Der Waal Forces are incredible. I also found out why water is easier to boil/harder to freeze at higher elevations, and harder to boil/easier to freeze at lower elevations. I never understood why this was true. I finally grasped the intuition behind it and am now proudly explaining it to everyone I can (aka, my disinterested family). Those epiphany moments are so satisfying, it is like, “ah yes…this is why the world works the way it does.” So go do Khan Chemistry. It will change your life.
I’m about halfway through Bleak House and it is going better than anticipated. I had to dig out my old Cliff Notes to refer to the list of characters because I’m beginning to lose track of them, but I’m greatly enjoying the story, which is the most important part, after all. I still marvel at how crazy I was to try reading this at like age 11 or 12…no wonder I was completely befuddled by the end of the book, it is a wonder that I can keep up with it even now. But the comical characters and situations, the humor, the skillful sketches and caricatures, it makes it very much worth the effort.
I’m going to be studying some ancient Egyptian literature for the next month or so. I’m taking a Western Civilization course, and that moves pretty quickly as it is a broad overview, so I plan to take a semester to study each time period that I’ve already covered in the Western Civ. Right now the Western Civ is at the Golden Age of Greece, but I’m studying the pre-Grecian cultures (Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc…) this semester for literature. Then next semester I’ll focus on Greece, while in my history class I’ll probably be at Rome or later. Is that confusing? It sounds like it. I’m just trying to balance my desire to learn everything with the need to slow down and learn it thoroughly. I want to get the broad overview, but I also want to take time to read the original documents of each time period and understand it in a deeper way.
I’m also going to be starting Spanish this week, so that should be exciting! I bought a textbook for my iPad, I think it will be fun to be so electronic with a “real” e-textbook, haha. Not sure if it will make the learning any easier, but I can hope.
I will end with one of my new favorite videos. My coworker sent this to me and I’ve since become a huge fan of this band. Science and music? It can’t get much better than that 🙂
