The Crutch - epilogue

Since the instructor gave us a chance to gain three points back, I got a 76.5 out of 80! That's a 95.6% - the first A I have EVER gotten on a Stats test. Even without the regained points I still would have an A, with a 91.8%!

The best part is completely juvenile, but I feel like any facade of maturity this blog ever had was torn away long ago, so I'll share it with you... Next to my score, the instructor wrote, "Very Good!"

Take THAT Mrs. Storch! (Mrs. Storch was the third grade teacher who ridiculed me for not knowing my multiplication tables. I hold her personally responsible as the origin of my math block...).

Mrs. Storch is dead now, I'm sure - she was about 108 when I was in the third grade... which was just after the Civil War... those were hard times in my home town of Burlington, NC... fucking carpetbaggers... "reconstruction" my ass.

At any rate, I am finally shaking off her influence. I do not love stats, but I actually understood the stuff on the test, and today in class, I was able to follow the new material that was presented as well. I may actually get an A in this class...

The Crutch, Part II

Let me begin this by saying I am not a stupid person. I score well on IQ tests, am eligible for admission to Mensa, and have posted very respectable scores on the SAT and GRE. In fact, I'm usually the guy that screws up the curve for everyone else in class.

In statistics, however, I'm the dumb kid. I'm the guy who asks questions that are almost relevant. I hold up progress, and say stupid things like, "Wait - the null hypothesis does what now? And what does sigma stand for?" (Despite my thickness where statistics are concerned, I pride myself on never asking that most annoying of all dumb kid question; "Is this going to be on the test?" Damn, I want to hit that kid... but I digress.)

Where was I? Oh, right - I'm stat disabled. I'm the kid that wears a helmet but is in your class anyway because the administration thought he should "mainstreamed." Out of courtesy, I sit right up front. That way the instructor can see the confused look on my face before I even raise my hand, and the other students can glare at me without having to crane their necks around. I try to stay quiet and not drool too much.

So, as you can imagine, stats is pretty much like a semester-long root canal for me. Carrying that metaphor as far as it will go, test days are those special times when the anesthesia has worn off. Last Friday was one such day.

But Friday was different. On Friday, I was no longer stats disabled. On Friday I became stats handi-capable!

Actually, Friday was just the culmination of a process I began a few weeks ago, when this stats class was ramping up into a never ending gobstopper of shite. I decided that I had to figure out how to use the stats package in my calculator.

Yes - THAT calculator. The Cursed Calculator of Sorrow.

As I mentioned earlier, the manual is less than helpful. The great irony of these machines is that only those who have a very solid grasp of the mathematical principles involved - i.e., not me - can actually use them. The vaguely titled functions hang in the menus like the grapes above Tantalus, while actual understanding of the concepts recedes below me like his pool. (The big rock overhead is my grade in the class, just to round out the image...) But enough Bullfinching - how did I become handi-capable?

I shifted metaphors, moving from one neighborhood in Tartarus to another. I left Tantalus, and went to hang with Sisyphus. Deciphering the TI-83 became my rock, and like the Sisyphus that Camus imagined, I tried to embrace the task. "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart." I doubt that even Camus believed that ALL the time, but it was enough to get me by.

Over the course of several weeks and many dozens of Google searches and dead-ends, I discovered enough pages offering TI-83 tutorials that I was able to assemble a set of instructions that actually work for the material I am studying. Why no one has compiled this all in one place is a mystery to me, but I finally found what I needed on about 8 or 9 different sites. Now, with a few strokes of the keys I can give you a binomial probability, create a one variable statistical array, or any of several other perviously time-consuming and onerous tasks regularly required of stats wonks.

Although I don't claim to understand the underlying principles very well, I can get by now. Instead of being a cursed hunk of circuits collecting dust on my bookshelf, the TI-83 has finally become useful. It's a crutch, and I am a one-legged man who is immobilized without it. Together we hobble toward a decent grade.

I like to think that the failed engineer's demons are being put to rest like so many unwanted math thetans. Each successful quiz, every completed homework problem, shakes a few more bad vibes from behind its LCD. Some day soon I'll be done with stats, and I think it will then be clear of all the taint of failure. On that day, I'm sure I'll be tempted to walk up to some kid in the labs and say, "You want this?"

The Crutch, Part I

Like many students taking college level math, I use the trusty TI-83 calculator. It has a nice stats package built right in, but it's not what I'd call user friendly. The inputs it needs to work its demon magic and spit out binomial distributions, factorials, and cumulative probabilities are not prompted - you have to memorize the input format, and enter the correct arguments, separated by commas, for it to work. The instruction manual that comes with the TI-83 explains it all, but in a format so dry that it makes C++ programming guides look like beach reading.

To further complicate matters I never had the manual for the one I have. My TI-83 became mine after it had failed someone else...

I was working in the all-night lab one night about 4 years ago. It was around 4:30 in the morning, and just after midterms. A sleepy looking kid, one of my regulars, came up to me at the lab assistant's desk and said, "You want this?" He was holding out a slightly battered TI-83. I looked up, puzzled, and assumed that he had just found it and was turning it in to our lost and found.

"Sure, I'll put it in the lost and found."

He shook his head. "It's not lost - it's mine."

By then I had already taken it from him, so I paused, holding it awkwardly between us. "What do you... I mean... ok, I'm confused." I set it on the desk.

"I don't need it anymore. I'm changing majors. Engineering kicked my ass." With that, he walked away.

I stared at the thing. Like any good liberal arts major, I eyed the black, brick-like machine in much the same way the Spanish Inquisition viewed astronomical instruments. It was a heretical wizard's engine, and I wanted no part of it. Not only was it a tool intended mostly for minions of the hard sciences, it was also the calculator of a failed student. Despite the late hours he had put into his line of study, he'd been beaten by it. It seemed tainted in some way, like the psychic remnants of his dream of becoming an engineer lingered about it. In truth, it was probably his parents' dream that he become an engineer, but no matter. Someone's dream had broken upon its plastic carapace, and it felt of the grave.

Still, it was an expensive calculator, and I figured the kid would get some sleep, realize what he'd done, and come back for it. I stuck it in the seldom-used front pocket of my backpack, figuring I'd see him in the next few nights and give it back to him.

In that front pocket it sat - for two years. I never saw its former owner again. Freed of his engineering burden, he may have fled the state, for all I know. The calculator stayed there, in fact, until I finally bought a new backpack, and then it was relegated to a shelf in my room. I referred to it as "that kid's calculator" but slowly I came to think of it as the "calculator of failure." It was a doomed calculator, a "+2 calculator of angst" if you will. Like any good cursed magical item, it sat on a shelf collecting dust, awaiting its next victim.

Fast forward to last semester, day one of STATS 2070. The syllabus stated, "a scientific calculator is required." For a moment I dreaded going to the bookstore and getting reamed for about $100, but then I remembered that I had the cursed calculator. I went home, found it, and dusted it off.

[Next Installment: Does a set of new batteries suffice for an exorcism?]

One Down, One to Go

I just turned in my Final Exam in Methods. There was a multiple choice portion worth 40 points and three take-home essays worth 20 points each. I think I did well enough that an A is still a possibility, especially since he grades on a curve and he loved our big group project. I also have to face this prof again next fall, so I'd like to leave a good impression.

My one remaining final is in Statistics, and it's going to suck. I am officially requesting that all you religious types out there direct prayers, supplications, sacrifices, and indulgences to the
god(s)/goddess(es)/impersonal forces/mass of noodles/personal power animals/ancestors of your choice on my behalf to help out with that (being inclusive and PC takes a lot of punctuation).

I'm going to dedicate several hours each day until the exam on Friday, but as my hero and role model Jayne Cobb would say, "I'm humped." It's likely that I am still going to need to retake it over in the summer session (I need a B, and I am a solidly established C student in mathematics). I have found that I tend to do better with math classes when I take them over the summer and can give them my full attention. At least I hope that will help...

I really do the see the merits of statistical analysis - it's just that I know there are numerous programs out there that can do it for me. I hate to spend time learning to do standard deviations and the like when even the lab terminal I am on now is equipped with SPSS and Minitab, both of which can do it faster and more accurately than I ever will. When it comes time to do major number crunching for my research, the first thing I'm going to do is hire a stats wonk (this place is lousy with them, actually), yet I'm still sitting here with my scientific calculator in hand.

I actually know what it takes for me to get an A in a math class. My best grades in math were when I took a class from a gorgeous female grad student. She was a tall brunette, a former soccer player, tan and leggy, with cute freckles on her nose. It was a summer session class, so she wore pretty sundresses or shorts everyday. She was smart and hot and she smelled like suntan lotion - I never missed class. Perhaps my Stats instructor this summer will be hot like that...

Nearly There...

This semester is winding down, and I'll be glad to see it go. I have turned in the two big papers that have had me at the library and computer labs until all hours of the night. I've presented one already and I present the other one on Saturday. After that, I have only to study for two finals, and neither is comprehensive.

For the first time since I returned to college in 2001, I've not really enjoyed the term. I am not a fan of any form of math, and I have struggled with my stats class all semester. Add to that another professor who is a complete tool (let's call him "Dr. Tool") , and that leaves me with only one class that I enjoyed this time around. Hopefully my two summer session classes will be better - I'm taking Athenian Democracy (History and PoliSci) and a philosophy class on fate and free will.

In an interesting turn of events, one of my classmates has filed a formal complaint against Dr. Tool. He asked all of us to submit our thoughts on the class, the grading criteria, and his teaching style. My gut reaction to those three questions is, "it sucks, they suck, he sucks," but I have refrained from shooting of an email to that effect to the department head. I have to take another class from Dr. Tool in the Fall and I don't want my name associated with a complaint. Not yet anyway...

At any rate, it is nearly over. I am looking forward to playing some badminton tonight, and I hope to get a good run in tomorrow - I need to de-stress. I am also going to be working on the next post in my series on the Dharma of the Game. This time I'll be talking about losing as the catalyst for personal betterment.

Notifications

Yesterday, at 11:00 AM, Black Vatican Standard Time, I received notification that I have been officially admitted to the Graduate School. On the 14th I begin pursuing a Master's Degree in Sociology. I had already been told by several profs that I was in, but getting the notification was a relief.

I turned in my letter of resignation at work, and they came back a few hours later with a counter-offer. They offered me a half-time student position, at a very reasonable hourly paygrade. It was incredibly kind of them, especially since I kind of hung them out to dry by resigning a week before classes start, but I had to decline.

Soon I will return to the roots of this blog - hours of sitting in a computer lab as a lab assistant, or "labbie" as they are known locally. This is the job that made this blog great! Hours of screen time, sleep deprivation, and forced people watching is the combination that created this whole - THIS [gesturing vaguely at the blog].

All of it - the Black Vatican, His Sinfulness, the BCPs, the messianic complex - all were born in the all-night Bio-Science lab. I miss the blue glow of the screens, the sticky feel of hand sanitizer, the sound of the printer jamming, the smell of the lab users...

Ok, not really. It does, however, beat trying to explain to beer-sodden frat boys why their scholarships have been suspended.

"Yes, Timmy - they call it a "scholarship" because you have to be a "scholar" to have one..."

The 14th can't come quickly enough.

Almost In

So... I've been accepted, sort of. Barring anything going stupid, I will be spending a lot of time in the building to the right, Ross Hall (home of the Sociology Department).

My undergrad adviser has told me that I'm in. The grad adviser has said, "there shouldn't be any problem" with my admission.... but I don't have that letter in my hand yet.

The letter is important; it, and a few keystrokes that change my status at the Registrar's office are required to unlock my federal funding. Until I have that letter, there is still the chance that I will be denied due to some damn loophole. Not a good feeling.

Despite that, I have enrolled in the graduate classes that my advisor suggested for me. I think the people who write catalog entries for grad classes go out of their way to make the class sound as terrifying and time consuming as possible. Observe:

SOC 4500. Sociology of Organizations.
Considers questions of organizational structure, decision-making, work situation and organizational environment across various types of industrial settings and cultures. Emphasizes transactions between organizations and their various environments and effects of these transactions for program implementation, as well as understanding of organizational effectiveness in terms of rational, institutional and societal perspectives.

I'm a good student. When I am actually interested in the topic, I am one of the best students around. In spite of this, I'm a little worried about my classes for next semester. It's a pleasant sort of anxiety, accompanied by a sense of finally getting back in the groove. I never really adapted to being just a working person.

Studying is really my vocation; I just work to fund the studying. Actually, financial aid funds the studying, so I guess I really just work for pizza money...

Grad School - update

My application is in, my transcripts and GRE scores have been received, and my fee is paid - all that remains now is for three professors to submit letters of recommendation. Since I'm applying for Spring admission, I should know very soon.

Oddly, when I went to talk to my profs, two of them tried to talk me out of getting a degree in Sociology. One said to me, "Sociology of Religion? Do you EVER want to have a job?!" The other suggested that I could pursue an MFA in ceramics with equal likelihood of gainful employment.

Depressing? Somewhat, but relative poverty seems to suit me. This blog is certainly more interesting when I am not up to my eyeballs in a real job. One of my profs suggested that I have become a member of the clerisy (learned persons as a class) and he welcomed me aboard warmly. I think I have always been an ersatz member, but soon I could have the actual credentials to be considered one of the literati. It doesn't pay well, but all that smugness sure helps keep you warm at night...

It Begins... Again.

Today I officially begin, once again, the process of applying to grad schools. I %absolutely love% spending $50 to be rejected by strangers. If I wanted that experience, I'd just start dating again.

The application itself wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to write that damned personal essay. Last time around, mine was about 3 pages long, and went into some detail about my odd religious upbringing and subsequent study of religion. It was well written, extensively edited, and quite safe.

Baylor has changed things a bit this year; their website now says, "submit a personal statement, including academic/research area interests." It's tempting to make some really outrageous claims like "I plan to challenge the current academic understanding of the conversion process in American Religions..." but then I remember that I don't want to piss them off. Some of the people who created the current academic understanding of the conversion process are on the faculty at Baylor. I suppose I will have to keep it down to the basics - conversion theory, growth of new religions, and the Bahá’í Faith in America. Is that specific enough to be interesting, yet broad enough to build an academic career upon? I think so, but we will see what they have to say.

"They" are those academics who already have their little collection of initials after their names. In my Sociology class just the other day, we were discussing the idea of job specialization, and how it is in your best interest, economically speaking, to join a profession, and then keep everyone else out. In theory, it keeps your specialization rare, and gives you greater value in the marketplace. So applying to grad school is, in essence, asking a group of people to let you into their club, which will eventually lessen their worth. As you progress in a grad program, you slowly make the transition from "student" to "protege" to "colleague," but in that final capacity, you really are also seen as "competitor."

It could be argued that academics would be best served by not admitting people that they feel are smarter than themselves. At least not until they are far enough along in their careers that they are no longer concerned about competition. By admitting folks who are not quite as bright as they are, the career academic lessens the risk of losing in future competition with that student - assuming that said student even makes it through the program and receives their own little collection of initials.

Of course, we cling to the idea that academics are concerned about the progress of their field and that they would never think in such base ways as to purposely choose candidates that they thought were slightly less capable than themselves. In fact, some scholars pride themselves on the success of their students and encourage them to eclipse their old mentors, but what about the subconscious mind? Is it possible that by being a challenging applicant with new ideas and an aggressive intellectual stance, you are forcing those old guard professors to react negatively to you on a subconscious level?

Maybe I'll just revise last year's essay.

Flock Milestone!

Raksha informed me yesterday that she passed her comps!
No rewrites - the nightmare that is grad school is almost over for her. Since she has let her blog die, feel free to post any congratulatory messages here.

Also - there has been a shake-up in the ranks of the Redeemed and the Sinners. See the sidebar, then gossip about how the mighty have fallen, and how the evil now prosper...