Thursday 15 April 2010

Curiosity and the way things work

Maths is not good for me. It just makes me agitated and stressed, and even when it's the easiest thing in the world I still dislike sitting there writing it all out. When I do get to one I have no idea about, I get annoyed at myself for not being able to work it out and to think logically whilst also thinking about how much my brain hurts and how I can't go on. And that, dear friends is how I end up doing things like this. So far 7 sheets of paper have been used for writing down maths revision from exercises in my textbook and all was going well until I stumbled across... CO-ORDINATE GEOMETRY. I mean, what is that stuff? When am I likely to use it in my day to day life of an English graduate?! Curse thee IB for making me continue with maths. Though really I am quite grateful, because I would seriously have forgotten everything by now if it wasn't for my two lessons a week of maths.
Whilst having a small break - where after I never really started working again, I went to check the post. I was half hoping for a post card from my friend who is currently in Seattle on a choir tour, and my hopes were met with that very thing. I love post. It actually brightens up my day so much, so this is partly the reason for me having around 25 university prospectuses upstairs in a mountain-esque style in my room. Ah! I so want to travel and meet people from different cultures and religions and settings. It just interests me so much. The way people live in comparison to our way. I even get fascinated in our German assistant lessons where she tells us about festivals like Easter and Christmas in Germany, and though only an hour away by flight, it seems like a completely different atmosphere. I suppose I am lucky enough to have experienced two traditions thoroughly in Denmark as well as England, but it's left me with a bug for wanting more! The group of friends I hang around with are also religiously diverse and I never get tired of hearing about their rituals and traditions. I'm just curious about the way people are and why they are that way. It sounds a bit crude to put it that way, as if I am always nosing in on other people's business, but what other way can we feed our curiosity without asking about the things we want to know. I was always interested about the way things worked when I was a child and my dad bought me loads of books, one namely called 'how things work', it was all about the physics of things, like locks and keys and springs, just practical everyday objects that had certain mechanisms. It's just all so interesting and I like to question.
I really sound like a mis-match of all things. I'm really interested in the way things work. I like things linear, but not boring. Though others may protest, it is for that reason that I don't enjoy maths as much as I do philosophy. Although in philosophy there is a somewhat linear quality to constructing a well structured argument, there is scope for imagination and your own conclusions. English goes further, allowing you to make your own criticism and by doing this lets you be entirely different from the person next to you, but also being just as right. I like open things, where you can branch off. It's the way I work, and why I always use mind maps when planning. You can always add more.
Like this blog. It started off about maths and now we're onto why I work the way I do and what I enjoy. Open (some may think too much, but there is no plan for what I was going to do, therefore I cannot be wrong.) evil laugh

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