Point/Counterpoint: The Beach

Friends,

As I mentioned, we've entered a stretch of rare blogging for me as I work this summer at Ocean City.  So keep in mind that I've pointed you to an almost endless supply of entertainment from my old writings.

But now I've found a brief window of free time, and I'd like to use it to have a one-sided argument with myself about whether or not the beach is a good place.


Point/Counterpoint

Jon: The beach is pretty lame.  My first reason is that most beaches feature unbearable 95 degree weather and a relentlessly beating sun.

Imaginary but Typical Person Who Loves the Beach: Aww, I love hot weather!

Jon: In that weather, you are constantly sweating and need to take, like, 3 showers per day.  That's 2 more than my daily limit.

IbTPWLtB: Okay, point granted.  Seventy degree weather is better.  But now I give my first point in favor of beachdom -- swimming in the ocean.

Jon: Yeah, when I was 8.  Have you actually been in the ocean lately?  There's really not much going on except the fear of jellyfish, sharks, and other people's urine.  And when you get out, there's sand in places you didn't even know you had and, yep, time for another shower.

IbTPWLtB: Yeah, I guess I haven't actually been in the ocean with any enjoyment for a few years...

Jon: My next point is that, unless you've got a group of people playing volleyball or something, sitting on the actual beach is boooooriiiiing.  If I want to sleep, I'll do it in a bed.  If I want to read a book, I'll probably do that in a bed too.  Anywhere but in the sweltering heat of the beach.

IbTPWLtB: But it's so relaxing to lie there!

Jon: It's relaxing to lie anywhere.

IbTPWLtB: Harumph (sound of defeat)!  Well, I like collecting seashells.

Jon: Point granted.  Another thing I hate is that the sand feels like it's particles, not of quartz and limestone, but liquid-hot magma.  If you take one step without sandals, you better hope you're packing Desitin (which, luckily, I always am).

IbTPWLtB: Yeah, that does hurt.  Ok, here's one-- the view of the sunrise or sunset out over the ocean.

Jon: Agreed, but you don't have to be on the actual beach to see that.  You could be anywhere in the vicinity of the coastline.  Or you could look at a nice photograph (jk, sort of).

Conclusions

For those of you who weren't keeping score:

Pro-beach:
Collecting seashells
The view of the ocean, specifically at sunrise/sunset

Anti-beach:
Sand that is 451°F
Oceanic predators/pee
Relaxation - the beach's main selling point - being found in any comfortable bed
The merciless sun (and related sunburn) at the beach
A layer of sand all over your body

And so, we can all agree that the beach is lame, or at the very least, overrated.


Post script

In many get-to-know-you games, like Hot Seat, a popular question is "Beach or mountains?"  As I reflect on that question now, my answer is "neither."  Isn't that sad?  I don't like either of the two most popular geographical features for vacationing.  Whatever.  I can vacation to cities.


Feel free to counter-counterpoint

What do you think about the beach?

Jon

Warning: hiatus

Friends,

This weekend I leave to work at the beach for 5 or 6 weeks.  While this may sound like a vacation, I really will be working, and it will be very time-consuming.  I don't know how much blogging I'll get to do in that time (but don't worry -- when I am able to crank out an entry, I'll make sure to plaster it all over facebook and twitter so you don't miss it).

Because of the tangent-shaped void that will surely be in your heart, I've decided to give you some amusing reading as a substitute.  Two blogs from the past:

My 100 Words entries from 2003
These snippets are from my senior year in high school.  I went through some difficult stuff that year, but it's also when I became best friends with some people who are still my best friends, and it's when I started really having faith in God.  But you'll have to wade through a bunch of immaturity and comma splices.

My old Xanga blog
This was more similar to Tangent Space(s), but it was much more (annoyingly) personal and less tangent-oriented.  But if you enjoy personal blogs, me, and/or random spillings of words/thoughts/emotions, you might get some enjoyment out of it.  The blog existed from January 2005 to 2008.  Facebook and its note importation ultimately led to the blog's demise.

Well, I hope you enjoy these old ramblings from my youth.  If you have any comments on any of those writings, go ahead and put them on this entry.

Happy hiatus!

Jon

Me and some friends, at the time of 100 Words

May 2011 Grammar Tip

I have decided that Tangent Space(s), by merely providing entertainment to its small but loyal group of readers, doesn't make much of an impact on the world.  I am an impact junkie, so this is unacceptable.  Thus, I introduce to you a new feature: grammar tip of the month.  We will be improving our communication, one act of grammar policing at a time.

In case you missed the one from March -- and you probably did since it only occurred as a tweet -- something piques (not peaks) your curiosity.  What I find interesting about this is that there is some false intuition that lends itself to "peaks": if there were a chart of your curiosity level over time, then something intriguing would perhaps "peak" it.  But alas, there is no such chart (at least not for me), and "piques" is correct.

There was no grammar tip for April, since I just decided to implement this plan today.  But had there been, it probably would have been about how you need to replace splicing commas with semicolons (or add more words).  This would have been hypocrisy at its finest, since I'm a prolific comma splicer. (And yet, notice how the word "since" makes that comma appropriate... but picture the horror of that sentence without "since"!)


Grammar tip of the month

The word mischievous is a three-syllable word pronounced MISS-chuh-vus.

Yeah, I sense the wheels are turning.  It's not miss-CHEE-vee-us.  That is always wrong.  If you look closely at the word (and where the second i is located), I'm sure you'll realize how untenable that popular but incorrect pronunciation is.


Join the Tangent Space(s) Grammar Police Academy

Please send me ideas for future posts or future grammar tips, volunteer to guest- or co-author, etc.

Jon

Babies R NOT Us

There are certain things you have the freedom to like or dislike -- sushi, jazz music, Jim Carrey, mystery novels... you catch my drift.  But other things, you have to like.  Our society demands that you do.  Democracy, The Breakfast Club, flowers, summertime, bilinguality... and babies/toddlers.

But what if you just don't like things you're supposed to like?  Well, as far as I can tell, you either keep quiet about it or you share your feelings and hear, "You don't like _____?!?!"  In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal -- but definitely an annoyance.

If your mind hasn't put 2 and 2 together yet, what I'm trying to say is that I don't like babies.  No, that was sort of just for shock value (and I already feel society's guilt bearing down on me).  To be sure, until a year or two ago, I didn't like people under the age of, say, 4.  Here's why:


Why I didn't like babies/toddlers

1. Lack of rational thought and communication

I hate to sound so heartless.  But if I wanted to spend time with something that moves around and makes noise but doesn't think or communicate, I'd get a dog.  And believe me-- that's not happening.

2. They didn't like me

This was, far and away, the main factor in my disliking of the infantile.  The phenomenon may be hard to believe, but my family can verify it.  Every baby and toddler seemed to hate me.  Why?  I can only speculate, but here's my speculation:

• Because I am large and bearded.  The sight of a bear, hippopotamus, or lion is terrifying to a small child. When the three are united in human form, it can only be the source of recurring nightmares.
• Because I didn't like them.  I know it's strange to say that I didn't like them because they didn't like me because I didn't like them, but you know how these strange feedback loops work.
• Because they have more important things to do, like banging blocks together and watching Elmo.

That's it.  There were 2 reasons.


The turning point: my best friend Hannah

My friends' daughter Hannah single-handedly turned the tide of reason #2 above, and my feelings toward very young people.  She not only liked me, but  (according to her precious statements) loved me.  I very soon felt like an older brother, or uncle, or something.  And she's just adorable.

My mom, noting that my general dearth of friends made Hannah my best friend by default and how similar we look to certain animated film stars, made an awesome window decoration:

Scaling the barbed-wire fence of societal pressure

Are there any other human beings who dislike babies, now or in the past?

What things do YOU dislike that everyone else in America seems to love?

Jon

Why I Love Mathematics

Friends,

People sometimes ask me if I miss math (note: I left math grad school to do college ministry).  The answer is usually "Eh. Not really."  But when I say that, what I mean is that I don't really miss math grad school.  Do I miss math?  Of course.  It's awesome.  And, for the record, here's why...


1. The thrill of strategic victory

I love strategy.  As a (twenty-five year old) kid, I loved Connect Four.  When I got older I loved Risk and Stratego.  But, as strategic as those games are, they don't compare to tackling a math proof.

I'll try to explain how proving some mathematical fact is the ultimate strategy game.  The object of the game is to prove that something is true.  The rules are the laws of logic.  The pieces you can use are the axioms of mathematics and any sufficiently well-known result from any mathematician in history.  Your opponents are your ignorance and the limits of your brain.

The satisfaction of solving a difficult problem far outweighs the thrill of trading in three ores and two wheats for your tenth victory point.


2. The majesty (and usefulness) of correspondence

The thing that always awed me about math was that certain abstract things (numbers, sets, mathematical structures) correspond perfectly with other things, both abstract (different sets and structures) and physical (atomic spin, the relationship between space and time, data storage).  So many times, when you want an answer about one of these things, you are forced to turn to some equivalent abstract thing and you can find the solution there.

In fact, just today I was talking to an old friend about his math Ph.D. thesis and it consisted entirely of this sort of thing.  Here's my misquoting of his explanation of his research. I've put math jargon in brackets so you can ignore it.

"I'm looking at certain examples of [directed graphs] which have special properties (e.g., that [each edge is assigned a group element] and that [there are cycles within the graph upon which the group operation yields the identity element]).  We call these [matroids].  You can also define a [matroid] as anything that has three such-and-such properties.

This serves as a generalization of the idea of [linear independence] from linear algebra.  What I'm specifically doing is looking at the matrix form of these graphs to answer questions about the graphs/matroids."

(He should totally title his dissertation "Super Matroid".)

If that was stressful, nauseating, and/or another language to you, I apologize.  My point is that in math, we're always switching back and forth between equivalent versions of the same thing, and picking up useful information as we go.  In that sense, correspondence is useful.

It's when you think about real-world correspondences that it becomes beautiful.  Our understanding of the arts, financial markets, architecture, chemistry, and (insert just about anything) relies so heavily on mathematics, and this is made possible because the numbers, ideas, and structures of mathematics truly correspond to realities in the world.

It's really astonishing.

How much of a nerd are you?

What are your thoughts and feelings about math?

Jon