oh don't mind me - i'm just over here trying my hardest

Friday 23/11 10:15

When I entered 7th grade at age 11, I sucked at physics. In fact, I sucked at basically all sciences - partly due to the fact that our science classes in primary school were pretty bad, but partly also because I had no interest in them and was overwhelmed with the new school, new teachers, new classmates. I was good at German, English, and Spanish, and decent in all other subjects. That was okay for me.

In eighth grade, we left the realms of the rule of three and drawing triangles and were introduced to functions and variables. Things started to make a lot more sense, and I began to appreciate the logic of numbers. Within a year, I went from a C to an A in maths. I still dreaded biology class, and somehow endured chemistry and physics. We were doing mechanics at the time and I remember that at the time, I didn’t really find that important.

In grade 9, I got “A Brief History of Time” for my birthday, shortly before Christmas. I read it, and I loved it. It completely changed the way I looked at physics. I understood the appeal of it, and I was so intrigued by everything I read that my attitude towards science itself changed. I think my teachers were quite shocked when I suddenly started putting so much more effort towards the science classes. I favoured physics and maths but got pretty good in biology and chemistry as well. I finished year 9 with only As and Bs on my report card, in the top 3 of my class.

I continued reading popular science books. I remember sitting at the dentist’s in 10th grade, waiting for my appointment and reading an introduction to quantum physics, making notes in the margins and getting weird looks from the other patients in the waiting room. I was sent to get an x-ray. The dentist asked if I was scared or had any concerns, and I said that I’d just read something about radiology and if he could explain to me how the x-ray machine worked. I chose advanced physics as an elective in 10th grade, doing presentations about dark matter and black holes. It was pretty awesome. 

For grade 11, we had to choose two advanced classes for our A-levels. When I told my parents I wanted to do Latin and maths, they tried to talk me out of choosing maths first - why didn’t I do German, or English? It would be much less work and I was practically guaranteed good grades. I remained set on maths, so they relented. I loved every second of that class. I still had physics and got straight A’s. In our graduation yearbook, I listed “physicist” as my dream occupation.

I enrolled in a full-time physics degree as soon as I had my A-level certificate. I changed my major a year later, to English because I missed it and to maths because I felt I was better suited for that, but I never lost my love for and interest in physics. To this day I listen to open lectures and read the German version of Scientific American.

I went from zero interest and an almost failing grade in both maths and physics to being a straight-A high school graduate first enrolled in a physics, now in a maths degree. There were certainly many factors that contributed towards that happening - my parents’ support of my decisions, engaging teachers, joining studyblr, and many others. But for me, the first step that got everything else into motion was Stephen Hawking and his inspiring, openminded approach to science, and his mission to bring science to everyone, not just scholars of the subject.

He asked somebody to raise their hand and ask him when we would use calculus in our everyday life. So one student rose their hand and asked, “When are we going to use this in our everyday life?”

“NEVER!!” the teacher exclaimed. “You will never use calculus in your normal, everyday life. In fact, very few of you will use it in your professional careers either.” Then he paused. “So would you like to know why should care?”

Several us nodded.

He picked out one of the varsity football players in the class. “You practice football a lot during the week, right Tim?” asked the teacher.

“Yeah,” replied Tim. “Almost every day.”

“Do you and your teammates ever lift weights during practice?”

“Yeah. Tuesdays and Thursdays we spend a lot of practice in the weight room.”

“But why?” asked the teacher. “Is there ever going to be a play your coach tells you use during a game that requires you to bench press the other team?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why lift weights?”

“Because it makes us stronger,” said Tim.

“Bingo!!” said the teacher. “It’s the same thing with calculus. You’re not here because you’re going to use calculus in your everyday life. You’re here because calculus is weightlifting for your brain.”

When it’s taught right, learning math teaches you logic and how to organize your brain, how to take a problem one step at a time and make sure every step can bear weight before you move to the next one.  Most adults don’t need to know integrals, but goddamn if I don’t wish everyone making arguments on the internet understood geometric proofs.

Scientific concepts broaden our understanding of how the world is put together, which does not mean that most adults ever really understand how light is refracted through a lens or why spinning copper wire creates electricity–and they don’t need to.  But science classes in general are meant to teach the scientific method: how to make observations and use them to draw conclusions, how to test those conclusions, how to be wrong and grow stronger from it.

History isn’t about dates and names of battles, it’s about people, patterns, things we’ve tried before and ought to learn from.  It’s about how everything is linked, how changing one circumstance can lead to changes in fifty others, cascading infinitely.  Literature is about critical thinking, pattern recognition, learning to listen to what somebody is saying and decide what it means to you, how you feel about it, and what you want to do with it.

Some facts matter: every adult should know how to read a graph, how global warming works, some of the basic themes and symbols that crop up in every piece of fiction.  But ultimately, content is less important later in life than context.

09-03-19

hello studyblr community! \(⁎⁍̴̛ᴗ⁍̴̛⁎)/

i’m back with a new bujo spread to share. i’ve gone long enough here on tumblr so might as well be back with this beige theme spread for the first week of march. i’m so excited coz next week will be my birthday. yey! i’m still busy with my undergraduate thesis but i’m half way through it + next next week will be our midterm examination, so probably, i’m gonna study on my birthday. lol. also, thank you for sticking around here in my blog! i will always be grateful. 🤗

- Britney for making fun of her when she had her breakdown

- Monica Lewinski for judging her when she was a 22year old temp sexually assaulted by the most powerful man in the world

- Ke$ha for ever thinking she was trashy when all she wanted to do was make party music

- Kristen Stewart for ever thinking she was dumb when she’s actually one of the coolest people ever

- Megan Fox for ever thinking she was just a slut when actually she was an actress being harassed by her employer. 

- Hating all the women who made a career out of having a hot body. Being is shape is hard, beauty is a weapon and auto promotion is hard work. 

- All the Mary-Sues, who exist because young girls everywhere want to be part of a story they love so much

- All the female characters I ever snobbed because they got in the way of my ship.

Feb 21, 2019