Wednesday, September 27, 2006
The Curse of the Geek
I am cursed by intellectual curiosity. There are just too many things I want to know about, and I am finding all of a sudden that even though I have more truly free time now than possibly ever before, I can't concentrate on one thing at a time for long enough to learn all I want. It occurred to me today that part of the reason I like taking actual classes is because then I have someone else responsible for guiding my interest and breaking up the information into more bite-sized chunks over a period of time. Maybe I should try to assign myself a-chapter-a-night kinds of homework assignments, but I can't quite bring myself to that yet. It's too easy, and too much fun, to have the luxury of being easily distracted. My brain has descended into a kind of joyous chaos, which I'd enjoy more if it didn't whirl around all the time and keep me awake when I'm trying to responsibly fall asleep.
In the past couple of weeks, these are the things that have caught my attention to pursue, research, and drool over books about:
Plus, this month's National Geographic came yesterday, and it's all about the importance of national parks. And it has a mini-article about the resurgence of the atlatl, in which they quote my old anthro professor at Grinnell, John Whittaker, who, you will note, started the world's first collegiate atlatl team. Yes, I do own an atlatl that I made at his house. I am a giant nerd. But I am now only two steps removed from a National Geographic article, so there.
I am cursed by intellectual curiosity. There are just too many things I want to know about, and I am finding all of a sudden that even though I have more truly free time now than possibly ever before, I can't concentrate on one thing at a time for long enough to learn all I want. It occurred to me today that part of the reason I like taking actual classes is because then I have someone else responsible for guiding my interest and breaking up the information into more bite-sized chunks over a period of time. Maybe I should try to assign myself a-chapter-a-night kinds of homework assignments, but I can't quite bring myself to that yet. It's too easy, and too much fun, to have the luxury of being easily distracted. My brain has descended into a kind of joyous chaos, which I'd enjoy more if it didn't whirl around all the time and keep me awake when I'm trying to responsibly fall asleep.
In the past couple of weeks, these are the things that have caught my attention to pursue, research, and drool over books about:
- the history and current day use of English in Japan (and Asia in general)
- relatedly, Chris had to go and talk about a class he's taking on the debunking the myths about Chinese characters, so now I want the books he mentioned
- bilingualism in childhood development
- the relationship between emergent literacy findings and my own thoughts on the deficiencies of modern TESOL theories of ESL teaching
- the theory behind fairy tales and their influence on childhood acculturation (older thoughts rekindled thanks to the box of books Jennie sent me, including The Sisters Grimm)
- the history of thinking about thoughts and the brain
Plus, this month's National Geographic came yesterday, and it's all about the importance of national parks. And it has a mini-article about the resurgence of the atlatl, in which they quote my old anthro professor at Grinnell, John Whittaker, who, you will note, started the world's first collegiate atlatl team. Yes, I do own an atlatl that I made at his house. I am a giant nerd. But I am now only two steps removed from a National Geographic article, so there.
