JOY
In Elizabeth Gilbert's book "eat, pray, love" one of her friends insists that every city has a word:
Of course, being a book about self-discovery, this discussion quickly leads to what Liz's word is.
Of couse, being rather self-reflective myself, this quickly led myself to ponder what my word is. Although, being a greedy reader I kept reading and merely stored the question for future consideration. Then on my run this afternoon I had the answer. JOY. It probably wasn't my word a couple of weeks ago and it might not be my word next week either, but for right now it's the best word for my life.
When I ask myself, "why am I doing this?" it's for the joy of it. Smooth blacktop so new it oozes water like a newly felled tree oozes sap. Wind bringing winter to the Chugach. Snow on the peaks above red tundra fields above green forests above yellow deciduous trees. Being able to run and move with ease. Joy.
This morning I spent 2hrs with Dallas Price's 6th grade class (well, technically an hour with her Pre-Algebra class and an hour with her homeroom class). After math class one of the boys came up radiating excitement as he told me, "that was so cool!" I assured him that stuff got even cooler in higher mathematics. He asked if he could also expand (x+y)^7 (I'd encouraged them to try (x+y)^6 on their own and he had already done it) and I told him to "do it" but if you'd listened to the tone of the exchange rather than the words you would have thought we were talking about something way more trendy than math such as "I'd like to hit this sick jump, I'm pretty sure I could do it but it might be too big for me, should I try it?" "do it." I had shared some of my joy in mathematics with this boy and that made today even more joyful.
Obviously, I expect you to try to pick your own word at this point :)
Every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be-- that is the word of the city. (pg 103)
Of course, being a book about self-discovery, this discussion quickly leads to what Liz's word is.
Of couse, being rather self-reflective myself, this quickly led myself to ponder what my word is. Although, being a greedy reader I kept reading and merely stored the question for future consideration. Then on my run this afternoon I had the answer. JOY. It probably wasn't my word a couple of weeks ago and it might not be my word next week either, but for right now it's the best word for my life.
When I ask myself, "why am I doing this?" it's for the joy of it. Smooth blacktop so new it oozes water like a newly felled tree oozes sap. Wind bringing winter to the Chugach. Snow on the peaks above red tundra fields above green forests above yellow deciduous trees. Being able to run and move with ease. Joy.
This morning I spent 2hrs with Dallas Price's 6th grade class (well, technically an hour with her Pre-Algebra class and an hour with her homeroom class). After math class one of the boys came up radiating excitement as he told me, "that was so cool!" I assured him that stuff got even cooler in higher mathematics. He asked if he could also expand (x+y)^7 (I'd encouraged them to try (x+y)^6 on their own and he had already done it) and I told him to "do it" but if you'd listened to the tone of the exchange rather than the words you would have thought we were talking about something way more trendy than math such as "I'd like to hit this sick jump, I'm pretty sure I could do it but it might be too big for me, should I try it?" "do it." I had shared some of my joy in mathematics with this boy and that made today even more joyful.
Obviously, I expect you to try to pick your own word at this point :)
Labels: math
posted by LAV at 22:00
3 Comments:
"ethic"
& Liz Gilbert determines later in her book that her word is ANTEVASIN.
Antevasin is a Sanskrit word and means "one who lives at the border."
Think you could get someone in your class to "discover" N(N+1)/2? I wouldn't tell the story, though. No downer like solving a solved problem.
Post a Comment
<< Home