Author: cheerfulchaotic

Oh, and as the sole tenant of our abode sticking around for the holidays, I get to screen for 4 different sublessors on short notice. Lovely.

So, my reading on homelessness went through it’s relentless list making (I’m currently reading, as I said, a ginormous summary of research in the field of homelessness) when it occurred to me that the big deal with fiscal zoning (a major element of zoning overall) is education. And educational funding is spent in ridiculously inefficient ways. There’s a fair amount of research showing that spending provides a cap on the expression of natural ability. Lots of money spent on educating someone without a great deal of inherent academic potential (as if such an entity were easily measured, but run with it) is wasted. This doubtless occurs with staggering frequency in the richest communities, and most funded schools.

A homogenous curriculum for heterogeneous students is incredibly stupid. The goal should be to have students pushing the limits of their current ability, continuously, in a variety of fields. This involves adaptive instruction. “oh, you did level x in field y with ease. Try level x+1 or x+2. But you showed no understanding whatsoever of level x in z. We’ll try x-1 or x-2 there.” Hopefully the latter part would happen basically never.

This thought led to the notion that my policy interests are primarily in things that are at the local/community level, though with higher level implications (I care about foreign policy, racial/ethnic and sexual minority policies, interstate commerce, and a variety of other such topics, but they aren’t where I feel I can make a difference). No real application to that thought immediately. Back to reading, hopefully less distracted.

Well, over the weekend, I ended up doing little of use. I did read a fair amount of an overview of scholarly work on homelessness, basically the part detailing the struggle with definitions of the problem. I also played Medina for the first time (with and Simon) which was kinda fun. Minorly competitive (I’ll place this here to screw you sort of stuff), but still fun, and buildy and amusing. By contrast, on Sunday evening (when I got the reading that I got done, done, and didn’t go to the clinic) Ro, , Simon and I played Game of Thrones. It’s an interesting balance of power game. It’s fundamentally oriented towards screwing the opposition, and thwarting everyone else’s bids for power. It seems to magically generate contention in ways that other games don’t. (like Puerto Rico, Carcassonne, Traders of Genoa (though I’ve found it to get a bit trying as well)). Instead of cursing one another good naturedly, we start getting irked. Maybe it’s a product of war games. Never did like ’em really. It’s been an entertaining couple of games, but I think I’ve explored it as much as I want to.

We’d offered Scott (Shannon’s new bf, the guy in the kilt in the halloween pic) Tom’s spot, and he accepted. Easiest roommate search ever.

So, the presentation last week went badly, and I’m rather screwed on writing the paper in time for class (by tomorrow at three). I’m still not sure exactly what I want to write about. I’ve done alot of reading. Which puts it a step up from what happened with “The Political Economy of Inequality and Redistribution” where I didn’t even do the reading. Even if I end up writing nothing, or turn in a total crap paper, I will console myself with the notion that I’m making progress.

I may not yet be ready for grad school. But to answer my questions about whether public policy is where it’s at, I think the answer is still yes. And if the answer is no, I always have time.

So, the dream.

It was kind of bizarre, I don’t remember much of it. We (a large group of us, though I was especially close to one, don’t remember who it was, no it wasn’t Ro, think it was a woman) were flying in two planes, one standard private plane, and the other a moderately larger private plane, cargo oriented. Both planes were overloaded. We were doing some sort of a survey flight over alaska. There was a strange town below us, looked kind of like a strip mine with houses built into the mine walls.

We somehow landed in there. Couldn’t take off back out, because, well, it was like a giant strip mine. When we got out, it looked more like some backwoods, modern day frontiersy town. Flat, no walls, whatever. (It was Alaska after all). White snow dusting everywhere. Cars pulled up on ill defined lawns, etc, etc. There was much rangling over transportation specifics, and weight vs lift, and getting out of there, I didn’t participate, but I knew it couldn’t be made to work.

Weird, eh?

I was kind of surprised. I really liked this one. Not like the original Matrix, but nowhere near the debacle that was Reloaded.

Here there be spoilers

Give me ideas for what to do this evening.

All roommates are gone, and I have a big empty house to myself, an excess of fare on a bart ticket (more than enough to get to sf & back), no real desire to play video games at the moment. I could go for dinner in the city, soma clubbing, hanging out watching Taken or some dvd, something lowkey, and at least semi-social would be nice.

I’ll be reading material for my paper until I get a comment or call suggesting something better to do with a friday evening. 😉

So, this project has been more or less torpedo’ed by a project manager who has trouble distinguishing between his ass and his elbows, but that’s okay. It sucks alot more for Ro. I’m just along for the ride, really. I should be employed through march or so, which should give me plenty of time to find a job. I should search here in addition to checking in with the Uncle on his company.

Ro will probably have been my longest running employer by the time all is said and done. He’s already number 2 (having lasted more than a year). The switchover is mid-january.

Anyway, on friday we were out in Albuquerque last week, getting data from the plane, hard drive problems having been fixed. I flew back here without my laptop power supply. It’s been a week, and still our data aquisition system master has not burned the data to a few dvd’s and shipped it off to us. (with my power supply packed in it, though he knows where it is). Grrrr.

In other electronics related news, our dryer, which was failing to heat has had both its circuit breaker, and the melted wire behind it replaced. So, our house is less likely to burn down, and I can do laundry again. Yay. =)

Taking six years to graduate, while taking classes at an achingly slow pace, and doing progressively worse in them, made me wonder. Bouncing over the U.S. with no apparent rhyme or reason, trying out jobs the way some people try out brands of deodorant, and piling up mounds of credit card debt, also had me suspecting there’s something wrong with me. What’s “wrong” with me is that I’m still building my sense of self. I got a late start, and while there’s some suckage involved, that just part of the game. And I intend to walk away with a sense of the rules, as winning is irrelevant. =)

I came to the realization that my notion of “experimenting with commitment” was rather naive. I’ve found that a good commitment is an expression of something that is clearly known. While an experiment is all about getting to know something better. They’re fundamentally different modes. Commitment will come if and when I’m ready for it.

Assuming that I’m not to blame for anything in particular that could possibly be my fault is mindset I might wish to cultivate.

I know I have a tendency to premature attachments. Particularly over the net. Or meeting in some other largely unstructured circumstance. Filling in the blanks with my own hopes. There are many guys whose company would bring me happiness with their pants on. Probably, alot of them wouldn’t work so well with the pants off. Yet I seem to be shooting, balls to the walls, for someone to share my bed with. Including trying to recruit the occasional wholly unsuitable individual. And ignoring potential female friendage. Clearly the road to optimal happiness. Hmm, must ponder alternatives.

Stupid cultural obsession with sex/dating/exclusive romantic love. Stupid me for not shedding annoying cultural biases. =)