elsagold: the WUMBLOG

if fallopian tube jokes frighten you, you best be glad that this is the internet and not real life.

~ Friday, December 23 ~

My left eye is twitching, and my right eye is red and leaking.

… I think this means I had too much fun at lesbian craft circle last night.

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~ Thursday, December 22 ~

Happy Hannukah.

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Follow up post no.2

Sister: can you help me with this
Hi Junot,
I feel like there's no way I could possibly thank you enough for everything you've done for me, but hopefully copious amounts of butter and sugar are a start! Thank you so much for the letter of recommendation for medical school - it means so much to me?
something???
me: uh
the first half of the first line is a little excessive
perhaps more sparing words?
Sister: Hi Junot,
Thank you so much for the letter of recommendation!
...
I really appreciate it!
...
me: sure, something like thank you for writing me the letters of recommendation to medical school. in exchange for helping me realize the career of my dreams, please ingest great amounts of butter and sugar in the form of these homemade cookies so someday I can return the favor and perform a cardiac bypass on you.

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Gentlemen, to bed!

//c.o Payne\

What’s the difference between a cat and a comma?

A cat has claws at the end of its paws. A comma has a pause at the end of its clause.

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I made a friend tonight.

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~ Wednesday, December 21 ~

I just came across this video of Steve Jobs where he explains that games can be learning environments — akin to the central ideas of my TEDx talk.

Steve says: “I remember the video game phenomenon. What was the most interesting thing about the video game phenomenon to me was that within a few years after its beginning, kids and non kids were putting in 2 and a half billion dollars worth of quarters into these things a year. You can look at these things as games and dismiss them. Or you can look at them as very simple simulated learning environments. So for example in a simple pong game, the game is constantly telling you how well you’re doing by how well you score. And so the more you learn the underlying principles, the better you score. So the underlying principles in the case of most of these games were fairly simple — but carry the concept much further. Imagine if the underlying principles are a sophisticated macroeconomic model of how France might have functioned in the time of Louis the XIVth. This type of simulation then becomes a little less trivial than the videogame, and yet the principles are still the same. And you can imagine what it will be like if we could use the historical material in the Library of Congress coupled with the interactive computer technology that we’re developing to do these things. These simulations will become what most of our students are learning from.”

(special bonus: he’s speaking here with Stewart Brand, the subject of my thesis!)

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Follow up post.

Today I helped my sister write a thank-you note to a Pulitzer Prize winning author. And for that I am very proud.

(It’s the little things, ok guys?! I tried to take a Caltrain to SF this morning and ended up taking the local which took 1 hour instead of 30 minutes, LOL I’m bad at Caltrain!!) (I’m also not very proud that I have started saying L-O-L in general conversation, like, very frequently. It’s pretty unimpressive. I feel like a tweenbot.)

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“ HOW DO YOU WRITE A THANK YOU CARD FOR A PULITZER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR

—

so asks my sister. I have no idea. Parp?

(junot diaz recommended her for every med school, ever, because wouldn’t you want your doctor to be a witty and heart-rending storyteller?)

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~ Monday, December 19 ~

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