Boobfest and Private

"What are you doing?"

"Curve-sketching."

"Are those breasts?"

"Your point?"
I've been working on the "Boobfest" series off-and-on; and I'm not yet accustomed to uploading my artwork to this blag yet. So I'll just take a moment here to mention that I've finished Boobfest III.

It's pictured to your right, and if you have a dA account, you may also view it here. It's oil pastel on yellow construction paper.

I'm pretty proud of how it turned out!


Why "Boobfest"?

Well, one night, I made this sketch (pictured to your left; and again, if you have a dA, you can also view it here).

I think I did it mostly for the sake of drawing the naked female form, and then coloured it mostly for practice with oil pastels--the point being that this was an entirely gratuitous and un-planned picture. It's also of terribly low calibre.

A while later, I decided I wanted to do another study of the nude female figure (which isn't unusual for me) but I wanted something of better quality.

One of my artist friends had recently shown me a piece she did in oil pastels on construction paper, and I was eager to try that out for myself. I put more planning into this one (pose, composition, colour) and this was the result, pictured on your right.

Now, I had no idea what to call this, but I was reminded of the "boobfest" sketch from earlier, and could not be inspired to think of a new name, so I called it "Boobfest II". Again, if you have a dA, you may also view it here.

In short: laziness is the reason I'm calling this the "Boobfest Series". I've actually got number IV sketched, but it isn't a nude piece; so I may re-name the series when I've finished that one. I guess I also like the way it's silly.

Whee!



Last night, I got enrolled into the Canadian Forces as a Signal Operator.

I am now a Private (Recruit)! Arr! I mean, YES SIR!

I almost forgot that part of joining the Militia means taking orders and that whole "superiors" thing. I'm not sure how I managed to almost forget that. I wonder, though, if I'm more enthusiastic than I should be? If I'm forgetting that I'll be an inferior, then maybe I've got the wrong ideas. Maybe.


Why I'm in the Military

• I need more structure--especially since I'm not attending school regularly right now.
  
  
• I need to be learning things--especially since I'm not in school right now.
  
  
• I want and need more discipline.
  
  In this specific case, I'd consider "discipline" to be "being able to do well the things I don't necessarily want to do well".
  
  

  I need to find out who I am.
  

  I have a basic idea; but, I feel that if I'm not challenged, I won't know more fully.
  
  

  I want more personal strength.
  

  My best friend has told me that I'm "hardy", which means: if he were to stick me in a large pit of destruction, I would survive; last a longer time than most people; something like that. And, I feel that one of my "callings" is to be a hardy person; as hardy as I can be.
  
  

  I need to get out of this house.
  

  I live with my parents, but it's too sheltered, and I'm not independent of them when it comes to soft things. I still ask my mom what pants I should wear; if my father says something carelessly, I might be greatly upset by it; if I'm going to be home late, I worry that my folks are worrying.

  
  

  I feel that physical distance would be the best cure for this.

  
  

  I want more training (which would be the combination of education and practice).
  

Those are the important ones--to me, at least. Less important would be:

• I could use the work-out.
  
• Communications involves Math (and we all know I wuvs Math!).
  
• I get to play with impressive and nifty machinery!
  
• Army buddies! Also: lesbians!
  
• Doing important things both locally (Canada) and internationally!

I think that's all from me tonight. I'm trying to get into a better habit of blogging; but I also want to get into a better sleeping routine. Right now it's more "go to sleep whenever-the-hell I feel" and "wake up before 13:00", which isn't very disciplined.

So, I'm off for tonight. I've spent just over 24 hours as a Private, and I've gotta say, it doesn't feel much different yet. I guess it's like turning eighteen, and you're suddenly considered an adult; but nothing feels different yet. So I'll grow into a Private the way I'm (hopefully) growing into an adult.

Speaking of which: I've been scheduled to get my army gear on October 24th, which is just five days before my birthday! So it'll be like a great-big birthday present! Hopefully!

--Charissa

"One Million Beans!"

This is an old question I was given by a Psychology student. I just changed it into a Math question, because I'm a Math student!

This is a very simple-to-solve problem, and requires no advanced Math. If you can do one of those "Billy has two apples" -type problems, then you will be able to do this one!

One Million Beans!

There are two jars: Jar A and Jar B.

To begin, Jar A contains P red beans, and Jar B contains P green beans.

From Jar A, Q red beans are removed and put into Jar B. Then, Jar B is shaken, and Q mixed beans are removed from Jar B and put into Jar A. There is no way to control or know how many of which colour beans were moved.

Now, there are n green beans in Jar A, and m red beans in Jar B.

1. Find | n - m | for all Natural P, n, m and Natural Q ≤ P.

2. Prove this is always the case.

This is one of my most favourite questions, mostly because it looks terribly harder than it actually is! The trick is to not over-complicate it, and to not rely on intuition. Rather, keep track of what you know, and you'll find the answer very easily.

I'll post the solution to this in a few weeks; because I'm submitting a more specific version of this problem to a workplace newsletter. Hehe!

--Charissa

When I grow up

"Mum, do you know what I want to be when I grow up? I want to be someone who can talk to anyone. I want to be able to understand what anyone says, and I want for anyone to be able to understand what I say. Because, some part of me realizes that until something I experience is real to someone else, it's incomplete. Even I am 'someone else' every passing month, week, day; and I forget; and when I forget something, maybe it didn't happen. But if someone else knows it, or if I can make a perfect record, something more than simply experience has been accomplished."

At least, that's what I wish I'd said.

Last night, I took a bus home from work. I kinda had this feeling that I should leave work on time tonight--sometimes, I stay logged in for an extra few minutes, especially on Sundays, because I could get paid overtime if I wanted. But, last night, I just felt like I'd benefit more from something if I left work on time.

On the bus home, an elderly Oriental man took a seat in front of me.

Maybe I should explain...


Why Buses are Important to me

I meet a lot of people through the buses.

I'm not quite sure why it happens that way, but I just do. Once I jumped over a bank of snow to get to the bus stop, and a young man laughed, so we started talking. Turns out, he's a friend of the principal of the Maths school where I work.

People like to talk to me for some reason. Mostly, these are older folks, and it's eye-opening to hear what they think of the world. I never knew there were so many pessimists!

Several times, I've talked to folks, and they've told me stories of how there are such injustices in the world, and they're the only ones fighting back! There was a lady whose mother was robbed while they were downtown, so the lady clobbered the thief so badly that the next time he saw them, he crossed the street to avoid them. There was a man who entered a restaurant and saw a young lady leave her bag on the table and a ruffian pick up the bag and make as though to leave with it. The man picked the thief up by the collar and made such a commotion that the thief could never show his face at the restaurant again. There was a woman who saw a lady in a wheelchair was wanting to board the bus. There was a young boy sitting on a fold-away bus seat, and the woman told the boy, rather severely, that he'd have to move.

These struck me as painfully loveless solutions to painfully loveless problems. And it was on the bus that I decided that if I want to change this, I'd have to be the opposite. If someone steals from me, maybe that means I'll catch him and give him money instead of a beating.

...Anyway.


Talking to People

On the bus home, an elderly Oriental man took a seat in front of me. Near the end of the bus ride, he began coughing violently; so I tapped him on the shoulder and passed him a pack of cough drops. He thanked me over his shoulder; and we talked a little.

His English was poor, but he spoke Cantonese. Actually, his English was better than my Cantonese (which actually might not be saying much). I never asked his name--mostly because he never asked mine, and it really isn't important--but I'll call him Jim for the purposes of this blog entry.

Jim's from Vietnam. He told me he has a younger sister living in the States, and other siblings back in Vietnam. He works for a company that makes chairs; and on Sundays, he goes to a casino by himself. He has two sons; and he's a grandfather at 62 years.

And I wouldn't say I have amazing communication skills, but I'm even a little impressed we managed to exchange that much information. At one point, we switched to Cantonese, and I had to explain in my undoubtedly Canadian-accented Cantonese, "Sik tang siu-siu, sik gong siu dee," which means I can listen/understand a little, but I can speak less. I live at home with my parents and am the youngest of my siblings. My "dai-goa" lives in Germany, and my "yee-goa" lives on a different street.

It felt unreal to talk to Jim. We were talking across a fairly steep language barrier, two countries, two generations and 43 years. I could see bits of his world, but not understand their depth; and I'm sure it was the same for him.

So, when I got home that night, I told my mum how awesome it was. I'm not sure she quite understood it all, but that's okay, because I can keep explaining things to her and she'll keep trying to understand; and she'll try to explain things to me, and I'll think I understand them (though I probably don't), and it's okay, because she's still my mum and I'm still her daughter. I find that so incredibly comforting.

And when I grow up, I want to be someone who can communicate with anyone, no matter the kind of separation between us.

--Charissa

Math math math math militia

So, a while back, I applied to be a teaching assistant at a Maths school. This Maths school runs on Saturdays, and was originally meant to be an enrichment program: for kids to get ahead, or to just--yeah, "enrich" their understanding of Mathematics.

I want to write a paper on how awesome Math is.

It's just, that's been done so many times already; and, from what I've read, unsatisfactorily. I'm reading Mathematical Sorcery in my spare time right now. It's good, I guess; but there's this one section that tries to induce the reader to look at an equation as one might look at a piece of art, and the author describes how he gets tingles down his spine. I'm not a writer, but I think that was unnecessarily personal; if something is awesome, the reader can figure it out for himself (gender-inclusive "himself").



Tower of Hanoi

Back in Honours Calculus last year, we studied the Principle of Mathematical Induction and then did an example problem using the Tower of Hanoi.

Here is the basic setup: There are three poles onto which you can place some discs. The discs are of different sizes, and start out at one tower, arranged by width: the widest disc at the bottom and the smallest disc at the top.

The objective is to move all the discs from the first tower to form another tower. Usually, you start off with the discs at the far left and must move them to the far right.

A further objective would be to make as few moves as possible.

Rules: Only one disc (the top-most one) may be moved at a time. No larger disc may be placed atop a smaller disc.

Here is what we found (probably):

discs:	0	1	2	3
moves:	0	1	3	7

Let m_d be the minimum number of moves, and let d be the number of discs to be moved. We noticed that m_d = 2m_{(d - 1)} + 1
We hypothesized that m_d = 2^d - 1 for all non-negative integers m.


Proof:

1. We shall test the first/best case scenario, where p = 0.
Plug in values:

m = 2^0 - 1
m = 1 - 1
m = 0

If there are no discs to move, there are no moves to make.
This is true!

2. We shall now test if the following scenarios are true; ie, whether or not m_{(d + 1)} = 2^(d + 1) - 1 Go!

m(d + 1) = 2 md + 1
m(d + 1) = 2 [ 2^d - 1 ] + 1	Substitute md = [ 2^d - 1 ]
m(d + 1) = 2^(d + 1) - 2 + 1	Multiply through. There's a common base of 2, so add one to the exponent to simplify.
m(d + 1) = 2^(d + 1) - 1	Hoorays!

So, by the Principle of Math Induction, we have proved that m_d = 2^d - 1 for all non-negative integers of m. We could even add to the table:

discs:	0	1	2	3	4	5	. . .	n
moves:	0	1	3	7	15	31	. . .	2^n - 1

Sometimes, a story goes with the Tower of Hanoi. There are variations, but the idea is that, at the beginning of the world, there were these monks who had this game set up in their temple. When they had finished the game, the world would end.

Supposing it takes one second to move each plate (not very realistic), and there are 64 discs, when will the world end?

d = 64

m = 2^64 - 1
m = 18 446 744 073 709 551 615

So, the world would end in roughly 585.442 billion years. The universe is roughly 13.7 billion years old, +/- 1%. Hehehe.




Being a Teaching Assistant

Being a teaching assistant is conflicting right now. On the one side, it's like job-shadowing, except I get paid--quite well. On the other side, it's incredibly tedious and painful to see what I would consider bad teaching, and not be able to do much about it.

I got such fulfillment today when one student called me over to explain something.


The way I teach

When a student puts up his hand, I come over. If there is a seat available, I'll sit down; if not, I'll kneel on the ground (this usually puts me just below his eye level). Then I ask, "How can I help you?"

After the student has explained his difficulty, I will confirm that I understand it. This helps me to be clear what I'm trying to do; and also gives me a little thinking time.

I used to be afraid of stuttering, so I'd take silence over stammering or filler. But when I teach, I have to remind myself it's okay to show that I don't know everything or that I'm not infallible; so if I'm having difficulty, I might make a short, "Um," to let him know I'm thinking.

I try to use at least two different methods to explain or solve a problem. I have a habit of asking, "Does that help?" afterward. I think maybe I do this too quickly sometimes; but I found it to be very helpful.

If someone else wants my attention at the same time, usually, I will tell him to wait; because if a student calls for my help, I want to show I am available.

After, if I feel that the student has time or interest, I'll go a little further and tell how it relates to other fields, where else it can be seen, or other cool things that can be done with it.



I think that's all for tonight. I'll just mention that on Tuesday, I'm going to be enrolled in the Militia. They asked me to bring a small recent photo of myself (photo booth at a mall works well) for my temporary ID card; so I went to the mall, and, wow, not one of those four shots turned out well. At least, I'm identify-able, don't look terrible, and I'm wearing clothes I like.

I'm very excited, though.
--Charissa