Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

I have been reviewing how to do some programming in Mathematica. I use Mathematica, a mathematical computing environment, intensely in one of my Spring classes---Multivariable Calculus.  The class focuses on techniques from a more qualitative perspective---many real examples can't be done by hand and so we use the technology to extend what problems we can discuss. Very little of my knowledge of Mathematica programming is discussed explicitly in class. This is pretty common---my comfort level as well as my knowledge base in teaching relies on having a firm foundation that is rarely relevant in a direct fashion. I am reminded of working with an adjunct once who knew that (-1)(-1) = 1 but was a bit shaky on why. The why is a fact from abstract algebra that does not need to be discussed explicitly with students but can easily be used to motivate an explanation that helps them to build intuition.

Aside from two winter storms this past week I've been involved in conversations related to moving my mother from her house to an assisted-living facility near my siblings. Let's just say my attention has been elsewhere. More later.

We have had another fierce winter storm come through. There is a fatalism about it; it's the weather, what can you do?  They salt the roads before and after. People die in car crashes. Poor folk die from the cold. Was it as bad as the last one? Debate. And yet: fatalism is learned. Changing weather patterns grab more moisture and bring it across more stretches of land as the atmosphere has more energy pumped into it. This is what scientists have been talking about since the 1970's, the impact of our polluting the atmosphere. We are doing this. In theory we can stop. Any action that requires the cooperation of literally millions of people requires political leadership.  So, fatalism is learned. US politicians are too tied to the fossil fuel industry to turn our policies away in a meaningful fashion. Our politics are too corrupt for citizens to have an influence. Fatalism is learned with every media churn that tells us that there is nothing we can do.  Apathy and cynicism w...

My father passed away fifteen years ago this month. My mother's health has been declining and she will be moving out of the house that I was raised in.  My siblings, who still live nearby, are coordinating the sale (and are just in the beginning stages). I was born in 1961 and didn't get my own place (aside from a university dorm) until 1983, so this was my home for almost a third of my life. The memories are of the people I grew up with more so than the building itself. When I was small and agile it seemed big; now that I am old and clumsier it seems crowded to walk through without knocking something over. Since then I've had homes (only one of them a house) in New Haven, Brooklyn, Chapel Hill, Pittsburgh (a suburb called Turtle Creek), and Carrboro. The memories of the homes themselves fade more quickly than I expected that they would; it's always been the memories of the people who were part of my life that I have held on to. I keep expecting some twinge at the thoug...

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of losing candidate Donald Trump assembling a mob in Washington DC and directing it to attack Congress to stop the votes of his successor Joe Biden from being certified in hope that he could stay in power.  Most elected Republicans supported his actions before and/or after the fact. Insurrection Day, a new day to remember for citizens of the USA.

I am seeing retirement in the distance and want to gradually start to winnow out my office possessions.  The most obvious area to work on is my collection of math and computer science books. All of them were treasured at some point. Computer books related to specific applications and languages are easy to part with, given how quickly they become outdated. For the math books I try to maintain some diversity of content if only to have books to lend students, but that rules out books that I don't think are clear enough for undergraduates. The older I get, the more I feel that I belong to my possessions instead of the other way around. The fewer I have, the fewer masters I answer to.

At the end of the semester and during break it is difficult to establish work momentum. When having to triage it is more exciting to focus on the urgent at the expense of the long-term important tasks. It is natural not to want to miss opportunities, for that is what urgency is about---a sudden loss in value for a given task if deferred too long, but unfortunately it makes it easy to ignore the more important long-term planning and projects. So I have given myself a couple of days to try and winnow out easy tasks from my to-do list so that I can look at the things that are hard and make the difficult choices about what to focus on.

Another road trip come and gone. 425 miles to PA, 130 miles to NY, 529 miles back home to NC. Observations: 1) My wife's car handled well for its first road trip with full passengers and luggage. 2) No snow until we came home, much appreciated. 3) Light traffic on the way home on New Years Eve, again, much appreciated. Glad to see long-absent loved ones, but we are struggling to provide care for an elderly relative who has fallen several times and is refusing ongoing care. There are memory issues from head injuries from the falls, and the relative is stubborn about passively seeking death on a number of fronts. Sigh.