I can’t keep a secret from everyone. It eats me from the inside. If I couldn’t tell a person, I think I’d share it with another animal, or at least a tree. It can be very therapeutic to hear yourself say things out loud, I don’t know why. I think it’s even better to speak…
When I was much younger, I would often accompany a parent on errands. In particular, I remember my dad would ask “Do you want to go for a drive?” My mom probably asked something to the same effect, only in French. There usually wasn’t an obvious reason for them to make the offer. I don’t…
Section Four: Regarding the classroom environment Tip #12: If you’re scheduled to give a presentation, cut sleep short the night before. Or, even better, forgo the nightly habit altogether and sap the strength of your 2nd wind by running briskly to class. Fatigue calms the nerves. When you’re fighting to stay awake, the prospect of…
I was thinking back to a conversation I’d had a few days ago at a friend’s house and realized I couldn’t remember much of what had been said. You can think of conversations as being two-way interactions, but the flow of information can never be symmetric from the point of view of one of the…
A good idea can come across as a bad idea if its supporter explains it poorly, and vice-versa. Numerous bad ideas have gained substantial support due to the articulateness of their backers. These sorts of social phenomena occur because we’re doing something we shouldn’t be. We’re assigning the human attributes of the person pitching the…
I’ve decided not to speak to my family for at least a year after I leave Fairbanks in May. I spoke of my intentions one night during dinner. My sister was not at the table, I think she’s still unaware. My mother’s forlornness was communicated to me by her silence and avoidance of eye contact….
Competition is fierce for placement in leading journals of science and engineering, such as Nature and IEEE Communications Magazine. Inclusion in an issue of one of these publications earns the author(s) notoriety, prestige, and some measure of clout, which they can use to make sound legitimate outrageous claims that they might introduce while entertaining guests…
It’s a popular pastime of cynical disaffected youth to criticize small talk. I’ve done it myself occasionally. The type of thing where you mock how relatives greet each other at the airport “How was your flight?”. Depending on your reference point, the frustrating or funny thing about ridiculing small talk is that the criticisms are…
Is it damaging to let someone’s misunderstanding of what you’ve said go uncorrected? Depends on what you mean by damaging, but it’s unlikely to ever be a good thing, except in the most mischievous of cases. As wonderful as it might be for your opinion of yourself to be completely independent of what others think…
As usual, I welcome this political season with yawns of indifference. I seek out someone who intends to vote in a fashion directly opposing my own, such that our ballots would cancel each other and we can both save ourselves the trouble of having to go to the polls. Amid the rumble of pundits, rhetoric,…
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