This Week: Bloody Triangles




Insanity. Let’s be honest, I really would choose to be insanely busy than bored out of my mind, but it is quite a draining life. Some great stories came out of this week.

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First off, there’s the love of my life: Philosophy. My Epistemology class on Tuesday had me rolling with laughter (in a philosophical sense). Dr. Huenemann disproved the existence of triangles in an illustration of Descartes’ Fifth Meditation. So many great quotes that I will now attempt to pull from memory. I seriously write down every funny line he pulls, it is a wonderful highlight to life for your teachers to be uproarious.

He began by asking a student, “Do you believe in triangles? Is that too personal for me to ask?”

He then made the checklist of requirements for triangles consisting of 1) They have three sides, 2) they have three angles, and 3) those angles add up to 380 degrees. He then prompted us to “go around with this checklist to see if things are triangles,” and did an impression of him intensely assessing things around the classroom, as if in doubt of there being any real triangles.

My favorite part was when we “precisified the triangle into nonexistence” by defining the definition further. What is a side? A line, he said. He wrote on the board, “line = one dimensional direction.” He concluded that since a one dimensional thing has no width that you can’t see an actual line or side. So we’ve never seen a real triangle, because you can’t see one.

So maybe all the triangles we think we see a representations of the concept of a triangle. But where does the concept of a triangle reside. Many students said in their mind, being forced to concede that triangles exist in some non-extended space (contradiction) in their mental sphere. Dr. Huenemann was happy that we had to “create a new space” for triangle to exist. “If triangles cannot exist in a type of space that we know of, then where are all the triangles?”

Another good moment was when he said “We’ve had angle inflation, each angle (of an equilateral triangle) used to be 59 ½ degree in Archimedes day.”

He also went off at one point saying that there really is only one triangle. Your geometry teacher asks you what the angles of an equilateral triangle is and you say “Each one is 60 degrees.” “Aha! But I wasn’t asking you about that equilateral triangle, I was asking you about this one!”

Sometimes Dr. Huenemann asks me why I’m shaking my head. It’s because his explanations are hilarious. He is wonderfully outlandish examples too, he referred to a donkey with peacock feathers for ears last class.


The other treasured story from this week was on Wednesday. I must note that I have some of the most considerate people as friends. Kelby, that gem, was incredible and took my shift on Tuesday night so that I could be rested for my doctor’s appointment in the morning. Seriously, that was a big deal to me, it’s hard to work graves during the week, and she had to work three in a row because of me. Also, Marissa saved my bacon by coming with me to the doc’s. I am nervous in medical settings that around focused on me. She, however, freaking adores anything medical because she is totally meant to be a nurse someday. Hint.

We get to the specialty hospital which really is more like a hotel than a severe medical facility. My doctor is awesome, a woman who is like 6’ and well put together. I go down the hall with Marissa to get my lab work done. I’m working so hard to not think about the needle in my arm. Marissa told me later that they took like six or seven vials that red stuff. She is doing an excellent job distracting me with some exaggerated drama and I make it to the finish line. Then I feel it coming on. The nurse tells Marissa to go to the fridge to get me some orange juice.

Next, I’m having a delightful dream and am suddenly struck with annoyance as people repeatedly yelling the same word incessantly across a field. They were really interrupting my business. Then I slowly came to realize that the obnoxious word was, in fact, my own name and the four nurses were right next to me. Yep, Madison had passed out.

After being all cute and motherly, these ladies put me in a happy red wheelchair, took me to the ER to be monitored, and hooked me up with some graham crackers. That was the life. Marissa had grabbed all the available types of juice and was laughing her head off at how pathetic I was. I couldn’t stop laughing either. I must be pretty adorable when I’m utterly pathetic. An experience to be treasured, that’s for sure.

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In conclusion, this week = WIN.

1 comments:

I pass out from needles soo easy...I hate it.

 

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