Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Yesterday, I took the day off from studying to go see The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 with my own sisters. I loved the books as a thirteen year old, but now they no longer provide countless hours of entertainment and romantic fantasy. (There is something to be said for time.) In any event, I strongly disliked the flick. What I loved about the books is that they captured what I thought was the human side of American adolescents. By this I mean, the girls endured true hardship, lost, victory, and happiness. They weren't simply jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend or experimenting with drugs, sex and alcohol. They did not lack academic or family or employment-related responsibilities. They did not fool around or party excessively or emulate any of the traditional "riot grrl" stereotypes of America's teenage girls. Instead, they were normal, dimensional, easy to relate to. (Especially, my personal favorite, Tibby.)

And, while the movie did make a strong and obvious attempt to capture that honest, real spirit, the screenplay fell short. Oh, and Brian was never supposed to be ripped. But on more pressing matters, the dialogue was awfully cheesy in some spots. The language used to describe romanticism stressed the girls' naivety while disregarding their strength of heart and endurance. I will add, however, that it has been quite a while since I sat down with an Ann Brashares novel and relived the epic tales of Bee, Tibby, Carmen, and Lena and the feminist in me may have clouded my thoughts with respect to their maturity. I still think that the novel illustrated the growth of the characters with respect to understanding love and friendship and guys in a more meaningful manner than did the film. But then again, this is a Hollywood chick flick and not the coffeehouse indie that Tibby would have written.

I think I would have preferred that version.

On Sunday, I woke up just before seven and headed to the Y with my sister and mom, and then we went off to church. I had wanted to get more studying and programming done this weekend. I am trying to recreated my accountability by increasing my productivity. I took on so much this year that I stopped being accountable and honest with myself. I managed to get everything done, but I stopped investing all of my effort into my work. There was a time where I would get such a high off of school work and testing. I love turning my academic studies into hands-on, malleable activities. I think this is why the AP program has never worked out for me. Its too rigid and lacks a level of creativity. I think math is an art that requires its students to work exceptionally hard to see a plethora of patterns that have infinite numbers of universal implications. However, when such a powerful discipline loses its ability to connect with individuals through the structure of an AP class. My solution is to not lecture all of the details of solving a problem with your students. On the contrary, allow them to explore the problem and create the connections on their own. It is the only way that they will truly learn it.

Well, that entry was a little all over the place! And I'm off.

"MIT-led team finds language without numbers"

Researchers at MIT have determined that the language used by the Piraha tribe inhabiting the northwestern region of Brazil only expresses numbers in relative quantities such that there is no concept of specific numerical values. A study conducted in 2004 suggested that the tribe had developed the concept of small discrete values such as one and two, but used the term "many" to express higher numbers. More recent studies reveal that the word initially thought to describe a value of two actually corresponds to values within an approximate range of 1 to 4, whereas another word, most closely identifying with the term "many," alludes to all values that exceed 4.


This discovery may help neurobiologists and cognitive scientists better understand what intrinsic mechanisms exist to allow the human brain to understand and utilize mathematics. It was initially assumed that counting was an intrinsic human trait, however some scientists are reconsidering this concept following the results of this study as well as a series of studies orchestrated by scientist Stanislas Dehaene who has explored this area within a number of ethnic groups and demographics. In his research, Dehaene has found that even top French mathematics students studying at the nation's most elite universities cannot always quickly diffentiate between integers when asked simple questions such as, "Which value is greater 4 or 5?" He has found the same trend to exist in other groups such as tribespeople (akin to the Piraha study) as well as varied groups he has studied across Europe and the United States.

via Slashdot.org and MIT.edu, a story regarding Dehaene's work may be found here