What I Learned Today

I get asked that question a lot. I end up giving two answers: my own wishful dreams, and the less inspiring view of what I think might actually happen.

I recently came across a thoughtful article that agrees with my complicated views on the subject very well. It’s titled “Mission to Mars: Will America Lose the Next Frontier?” After noting the merits of the MSL rover, the article points out the downside of the project: by going almost $1B over its initial cost estimate, MSL has forced the delay or cancellation of other Mars endeavors. (I believe that the article’s note about the cancellation of the Mars 2016 mission is a reference to the 2018 MAX-C mission, a step on the path to sample return, which was canceled. We do have a mission slated for 2016, announced after the article’s publication: the Mars Insight lander.) Similarly, the article notes the terrible impact that the James Webb Space Telescope has had on NASA’s astrophysics program. JWST is NASA’s poster child for mind-blowing cost overruns. Initially estimated at $500M, it’s grown by leaps and bounds and is now estimated at $8B. Both MSL and JWST are sure to deliver rich scientific gains in their respective missions. However, I think this article is correct and fair to note the other efforts that have fallen by the wayside to ensure that these projects are complete.

The main message of the article, however, is the bigger view on what this means in terms of larger, longer-term goals:

“But today, thanks to a combination of budgetary stress, regulatory overkill, and an unfortunate lack of political skill at the highest levels of NASA, the Mars exploration program is in deep trouble. It may be a very long time before the U.S. space agency launches another significant Mars mission.”

Put simply, NASA doesn’t have the budget to send humans to Mars. “Regulatory overkill” refers to a strict intolerance of any NASA failure, no matter how large or small, which necessitates over-engineering (and ballooning costs). Unless something dramatic changes in NASA leadership, political weight, or budgetary windfall, it’s unlikely that our space agency is going to get us there. But all is not lost; Elon Musk is on the job.

The online Fantasy & Sci-Fi class has moved on from the darkly gothic horror of Dracula to the psycho-drama of Frankenstein. Here’s what I chose to write about. Peer reviews are very welcome. ;)

Victor Frankenstein: Friend to None

The desire for friendship drives the plot of “Frankenstein,” and the story is a tragedy not just because of Victor’s transgressions and poor moral choices, but because he never learns how to be a true friend.

Friendship is presented as an essential ingredient for a virtuous life. The monster states, “My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal.” Walton, who is likewise eager for friendship, opines that “such a friend [would] repair [his] faults.” Yet Frankenstein, who is blessed with friendship and support from all around him, does not improve from their influence, because he does not perceive its value. His own words reveal him to be an unrelentingly self-focused individual, obsessed with his own goals, desires, and pains.

The monster hungers for a friend whom he imagines “sympathizing with my feelings and cheering my gloom.” He is devastated when the de Lacey family rejects him. His hopes are raised when Victor agrees to create a female companion, then dashed when Victor destroys her. The monster responds by killing Clerval, Victor’s closest friend. Victor is enraged by this loss, yet he does not see the analogy to what he has done to the monster.

Most pointedly, Victor’s lack of regard for friendship aggravates the central conflict. An obvious solution presents itself: if he could not create a companion for the monster, he could have been that companion himself. It is clear that showing the least crumb of sympathy or affection for his creation would have radically altered the monster’s catastrophic course. Yet Victor never considers this route. Despite the major examples in his life (his father’s support, Elizabeth’s affections, Clerval’s dedication), he never learns to offer those things to another—and that is what makes “Frankenstein” a tragedy.

Did you know that there’s an American in “Dracula”? This was the book assigned for week 3 of Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World, a course I’m taking online. The story is set entirely in Europe and England, but Bram Stoker managed to get in a jibe or two at America nonetheless.

Our homework in this class is to write a short essay (REALLY short: 270 to 300 words) that “aims to enrich the reading of a fellow student who is both intelligent and attentive to the readings and to the course.” This instruction seems aimed at discouraging us from all writing the same essay on the same obvious major themes. Instead, we are to identify some interesting but potentially overlooked aspect of the work and analyze it for the benefit of our classmates—who are the ones doing the grading.

Here is my contribution (warning: spoilers!):

American Aggression Controlled

Quincey Morris stands out as the only American character in the story of Dracula, an otherwise European tale. He is the character we know least well. His name, “Quincey”, means “fifth”, as if filling out the complement of five men might be his main function in the story. He is the author of only one letter in the story, a message suggesting drinks with Arthur Holmwood and John Seward after their proposals to Lucy are rejected and Arthur’s is accepted. He is courageous, sturdy, and good with a Winchester.

However, as the only American, he also stands for America. On meeting him, asylum patient Renfield compliments him on the U.S.’s annexation of Texas, a move that Britain as a nation opposed. Renfield then speculates about further U.S. expansion, to a dramatic future in which “the Pole and the Tropics may hold allegiance to the Stars and the Stripes.” Though couched as approval, the statement issues from a madman. It is likely that this expresses a British fear, and criticism, of such American actions.

Stoker then systematically puts American aggression in its place. Renfield, who approved of those actions, is brutally destroyed. During the ensuing Dracula chase, Quincey the American is the only one of the five men to be injured, and ultimately, he dies as well. His death seems unnecessary and arbitrary from the plot perspective, but it could serve as a not-so-subtle statement about British superiority to America. Quincey is remembered for his dedication and selflessness (an instructional lesson for America?) and memorialized in Jonathan and Mina’s son. Jonathan reports “the secret belief that some of our brave friend’s spirit has passed into [his son].” Perhaps England can benefit from emulating America’s good qualities, once her troubling aggression is under control.

The note about “only one letter” is meaningful because the story is told in epistolary format, so the only way we learn of the characters’ activities is through their diaries, telegrams, newspaper articles, and letters. Quincey remains something of a cipher.

The full quote from the momentarily, and curiously, sane-sounding Renfield is, “Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great state. Its reception into the Union was a precedent which may have far-reaching effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold allegiance to the Stars and the Stripes. The power of Treaty may yet prove a vast engine of enlargement, when the Monroe doctrine takes its true place as a political fable.” This comment seems to come entirely out of left field, and no one responds or follows up on it. It’s irrelevant to the story, so why did Stoker include it? I posit above that he wanted to make a subtle political statement and made Quincey his device. I cannot read his dead mind, but now I wish there were some way to ask him about it!

Six weeks ago, I was forced to stop running due to intense knee pain. My doctor advised a complete halt to impactful exercise (running and Jazzercise) and then a gradual return to activity. Three days ago, I’d had it with waiting and went out for a tiny 1-mile run. Most of my body felt fantastic, loving that feeling of jogging once again. My knees weren’t as thrilled and complained for most of the run, but not to the point of making me stop. It was a slow run (the mile took me 11 minutes), but it was a huge improvement over one month ago, when I tried to jog along the sidewalk and didn’t make it 20 yards.

While my knees didn’t like the run very much, by the next morning they felt better than they had in a while. (Even going down stairs had been mildly painful.) My hip flexor, which had also been troubling me, also was greatly improved. It really seems that mild exercise, at least for someone with a sedentary day job like me, is good for the body.

Tonight I went for another 1-mile run, finishing in 9:30. My knees still aren’t at 100%, but there was noticeably less pain this time. I’m encouraged to keep at it.

I found some tips on dealing with runner’s knee, including:

• Take glucosamine pills. I tried this for a week, and by the end of the week I actually did notice that my knees felt a little better (this was before my resumption of running), *but* my left knee got very swollen (fluid? glucosamine muck?). I have no idea, but after a while the puffiness bugged me enough that I stopped, and it went away. My left knee is the one with the torn ACL. So *maybe* glucosamine is good for joint issues but bad for a torn ligament? No clue.
• Run on the balls of your feet. This reduces the impact your legs/knees absorb by “50%”, compared to running with a heel strike. It doesn’t feel natural (yet?), but it does feel softer. I put “50%” in quotes because this number appeared in a variety of places but without any data or authority to back it up, so it could just be made up. Running this way may be the same thing as pose running — or at least similarly motivated. So far this feels really weird, but I’m encouraged to keep at it.
• Run in the street instead of on the sidewalk; asphalt is significantly softer than concrete. Okay, I’ll try that. And be sure to wear super-reflective clothes :)
• Strengthen your quads. Apparently they absorb a lot of the impact as well, so stronger muscles can help save the knee. Methods for doing so include “quadricep setting” (flexing the quad with the leg stretched out flat in front of you) and (careful) squats. I haven’t tried this yet.
• Less sitting. Sitting stretches the tendon over the patella, increasing pressure on the irritated part of the knee. I’ve been spending long periods at work standing instead of sitting, or just standing up and moving around periodically. I’m not sure if this is helping directly, but it makes me feel better in general.

Here’s to pain-free running, and building back up to multi-mile runs!

One of the assignments in my first Library Science class is to write a blog post reflecting on the “personal skills needed to succeed as an online student and as a member of an online team.” We were encouraged to review “Is an online program right for you?”, a checklist apparently crafted with me in mind. Based on this list, I’m well suited for an online program: I’m habitually organized and disciplined, I’m self-motivated, I work very well independently, I have tech skillz, and, oh yes, I *love* a challenge.

Next we received some tips on study habits and time management, emphasizing how the online course experience differs from in-person instruction. Online courses provide more flexibility (you work when you’re available) but therefore also shift responsibility onto the student’s shoulders. Suggestions include using a calendar to track deadlines and designating regular times to work on the course. I would have done the former anyway, but I appreciated the reminder about the latter; diving into the class opportunistically, as time permits, is not a recipe for success when all of your other daily demands crowd around!

We were given two videos to watch that focus on the skills involved in successful teamwork. I gather that we’ll encounter group projects in several classes during the course of the degree. I found these videos very interesting, realizing as I watched them that I’d never been explicitly taught how to approach group work. I’ve experienced my share of frustrations, disappointments, and communication failures, but I attributed this to the necessary evils of group work. In terms of personal skills, I’m a natural organizer, I’m very reliable, and I’m a good communicator and editor. My weaknesses include naively assuming that everyone has the same goals I do, imposing possibly unreasonable expectations on others, and a perfectionist urge to jump in and “do it right” instead of trusting others. Being aware of these things helps me head them off.

The first thing I learned from Dr. Haycock’s colloquium on “Working in Teams” was the power of the term “team”, as opposed to “group.” A team consists of people with a common goal and individual accountability. “Group” covers a range of gatherings, possibly with much looser structure and lacking defined goals and ground rules. Dr. Haycock also enumerated factors that lead to team failures: lack of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. These can be addressed by having clarity in team goals (including, for coursework, the desired quality of the resulting product; what grade are we aiming for? It hadn’t occurred to me that we’d need to ask this question!), clearly defined roles/responsibilities, and established ground rules (expectations for team meetings, how information will be shared, how to serve as checkpoints on each others’ work, consequences if rules aren’t followed). I was persuaded that taking the time to converge on these items up front could head off a lot of problems later.

Dr. Haycock then described four stages of team development: Forming, Storming (dissatisfaction), Norming (resolution), and Performing. Two comments he made struck me here: that all four stages are normal (so expect some dissatisfaction and know that there are ways to work through it), and that not all teams make it through all four. He noted that many teams hand in their final project, never having made it to the Performing stage. Sounds like a painful experience!

I liked his suggestion to designate a “process observer” within the team whose job it is to take a minute or so at the end of each meeting and comment on whether the team succeeded in sticking to its ground rules. Presumably this could be a rotating duty, and presumably this internally generated feedback could help to remind members of the rules or to inspire changes in the rules, if needed.

The second video was “The Monster Inside Library School: Student Teams” by Enid Irwin. She offered additional advice for successful team experiences, including learning about your teammates’ skills and being willing to mentor teammates (the latter skill being something you may use day-to-day in a library position!). She also noted that one reason teamwork figures prominently in the SLIS program is that librarian jobs often include a lot of teamwork, so learning functional team skills now will serve you well later. I reflected that I participate in several groups (not all what I would consider “teams”) at work, and none of them are as structured as the ideal described here. Perhaps I can incorporate some of these ideas into improving teams at work, too.