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Any Math People?/Brett Kavanaugh


FEDude

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Just wondering if anyone here is a math person. Unfortunately, I was the only math guy in my band and sometimes did homework in exchange for food. Looking back, I know realize I had a monopoly and could've taken advantage of the market.

Anyway, I'd love to talk about funny experiences in math class.

 

This one time, I was applying the law of cosines (A^2=B^2+C^2+2BCCosa) on a test, but I forgot to multiply the last term by two every time I used it. Later that night, I realized my mistake and just cried from then until I fell asleep. Looking back, I seriously overreacted, and I even looked up online how to accept failure of eHow. I don't overreact anymore and I've never messed up on law of cosines again.

 

Another time, I promised my teacher I'd join the UIL math team, but I forgot to go to a single meeting. On one of the tests, I did fairly well, but she wrote on it asking how UIL math was going. It was very embarrassing.

 

My favorite time was my junior year, my math class was talking lightly and the substitute came in yelling at the top of her lungs to get everyone to be quiet. I couldn't stop laughing about it and I started thinking about it during a test and erupted in laughter.

 

Or if you just want to talk about the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation and other political events, that's cool too.

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Ew physics! I have 1 more physics class left and then I'm done. In my last one I took, the teacher kept showing us music videos. We saw the Ok Go This too shall pass Rube Goldberg machine video like 4 times in class.

My favorite one time from that class was when I had to build a bridge and I finished super early, but then I dropped it and broke it pretty bad. My partner wasn't too happy. We still did decently on it.

 

Also the final made me cry as I took it, and we were allotted 3 hours, so I took 2 hours 57 minutes. It was just so hard. Walking out I couldn't even eat I was so sad. Found out 4 weeks later (yes my proff took that long to put it in) I got a great grade and and an A in the class.

 

So yeah, not a fan of physics.

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Ew physics! I have 1 more physics class left and then I'm done. In my last one I took, the teacher kept showing us music videos. We saw the Ok Go This too shall pass Rube Goldberg machine video like 4 times in class.

My favorite one time from that class was when I had to build a bridge and I finished super early, but then I dropped it and broke it pretty bad. My partner wasn't too happy. We still did decently on it.

 

Also the final made me cry as I took it, and we were allotted 3 hours, so I took 2 hours 57 minutes. It was just so hard. Walking out I couldn't even eat I was so sad. Found out 4 weeks later (yes my proff took that long to put it in) I got a great grade and and an A in the class.

 

So yeah, not a fan of physics.

 

Sucks that you had such a negative experience. I loved Physics in high school and college. I had some very tough classes of course, and in graduate school I had classes where the professor designed the exams so the class average would be in the 30 or 40% range. They would be curved as the intent was to obtain that score. My high school physics class was great - I remember designing bridges with straws for maximum load bearing, designing an egg drop container to be dropped off the roof of the school and keep the egg unbroken, we had to design a paper airplane that could stay in the air a long time, and one that could be thrown from one end of the gymnasium to the other. I remember most of it came pretty easily to me, and I didn't get stressed over the class, which is important. Of course, I was in high school back when dirt was young, and my kids think dinosaurs were still around...

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It might've just been the style of class. She would give very easy examples in lecture and assign the hardest problems for homework. Thankfully I mostly just study kinematics and Newton's laws. Can't imagine going into electricity and magnetism.

I noticed at my school at least that there was an inverse relationship in STEM abilities and band involvement. When I became pit section leader, I did my best to help that, but one person can only do so much.

By the way, I think my school went after yours at state prelims 2014. We didn't expect to do very well, but hearing y'all up close is inspiring and I was very happy when y'all comfortably made finals.

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It might've just been the style of class. She would give very easy examples in lecture and assign the hardest problems for homework. Thankfully I mostly just study kinematics and Newton's laws. Can't imagine going into electricity and magnetism.

I noticed at my school at least that there was an inverse relationship in STEM abilities and band involvement. When I became pit section leader, I did my best to help that, but one person can only do so much.

By the way, I think my school went after yours at state prelims 2014. We didn't expect to do very well, but hearing y'all up close is inspiring and I was very happy when y'all comfortably made finals.

 

Just giving examples is the wrong way to go. The key to physics (and math) is to learn how to scope out the problem - what are your boundary conditions, what are your data points, what are you trying to achieve - then utilize the tools you have to solve the problem. It is really a way of thinking and approaching problems. Once that becomes second nature, things often will start to click for you.

 

E&M was interesting. I also enjoyed optics and nuclear physics. Quantum mechanics was fascinating, but ultimately wasn't where I went - I tend to stick more to classical mechanics in my job (as you do). In fact, most of what I do is what I mentioned above - understanding a problem, figure out what the solution looks like, and working with the tools and resources available to bridge the gaps. So I actually use more of the problem solving that I learned than actual physics (but I certainly do use some).

 

It is interesting your point on STEM and band. If I think back to my years, I would tend to agree with you. For me I loved band, and I loved science - one was a balance to the other and helped keep burnout at bay. My high school band was tiny (I think we put something like 35-40 people including guard on the field), and we were an occasional threat to win our class (usually A but sometimes AA) at a contest. We didn't have a terribly strong program - for instance I was trumpet section leader for 4 years as there were no upper class players ahead of me. It has been interesting interacting with the band here these 4 years and contrasting that to my experience. I hope this program continues to inspire people - it is gratifying to hear about inspiration, which ultimately matters far more in life.

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You're right about the fact that you can't learn in examples and you have to grasp it more abstractly to truly understand it.

I recently tutored my ex in trigonometry and very basic linear algebra. We weren't on great terms to begin with, so me making her deeply understand the concepts didn't sit well.

Pretty often, I'd be the only person from band in my math/science classes. Everyone else had dropped band so they'd "have more time for school." Honestly it just annoyed me because we often lost our best players that way.

 

By the way, woodlands '13 was the show I saw win nationals my freshman year. At the time I don't think I understood just how good that show was. Still one of the best designed and emotional shows ever with a band that performed the heck out of it.

I remember this message board raving about it, and I wanted to join in too, but I knew it'd probably be best if I waited until I graduated to actually discuss anything. Looking back, that was the right choice as students and parents in the mid-tier of BOA (25th-50th at BOA SA) are quite passionate about their bands (good thing too, it's just a little dangerous as it can often degenerate into meaningless argument).

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You're right about the fact that you can't learn in examples and you have to grasp it more abstractly to truly understand it.

I recently tutored my ex in trigonometry and very basic linear algebra. We weren't on great terms to begin with, so me making her deeply understand the concepts didn't sit well.

Pretty often, I'd be the only person from band in my math/science classes. Everyone else had dropped band so they'd "have more time for school." Honestly it just annoyed me because we often lost our best players that way.

 

By the way, woodlands '13 was the show I saw win nationals my freshman year. At the time I don't think I understood just how good that show was. Still one of the best designed and emotional shows ever with a band that performed the heck out of it.

I remember this message board raving about it, and I wanted to join in too, but I knew it'd probably be best if I waited until I graduated to actually discuss anything. Looking back, that was the right choice as students and parents in the mid-tier of BOA (25th-50th at BOA SA) are quite passionate about their bands (good thing too, it's just a little dangerous as it can often degenerate into meaningless argument).

 

Your last point is very true, and I've tried to be careful with my opinions since I've made very obvious which band I'm with. Haven't always succeeded. Heck, I'll give my opinion of our shows, but since I have a little bit of inside info, I really have to be extra cautious about what I say in a public forum. I love marching band, and even as a non-expert I can still tell the difference between a band that scores 75 and a band that scores 80. Where it gets tough is where all these bands put out such wonderful shows that the differences are so small, and a 2 point difference can be 10 placements.

 

The 2013 show was terrific. I unfortunately never saw it live (I didn't live here at that time). My favorite show that I saw live was Hebron's 2015 show "360". Their Grand Nationals Semi-finals performance was the best thing I've ever seen live in high school marching band.

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I still think Hebron was robbed. That sax solo is one of the few times I actually enjoyed the sound of the saxophone.

Oddly enough, I don't see too much argument from very high scoring bands. I think that's partially because the directors have an iron grip on their kids' virtual identities and expect them to be spotless during their 4 years. Mid-tiers don't have those rules as often I've noticed.

A band confessions twitter page from 2014 comes to mind that devolved into Harlingen and O'Connor students spouting insults at each other. Both groups did well come Area time, but it's impossible to deny the animosity between the two. Most Northside directors have adopted social media standards because of those twitter pages.

 

Anyway, does anyone have thoughts about Brett Kavanaugh? I feel like I occasionally have to bring him up so the title doesn't seem misleading. Lol.

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And about math, I’m going to end up graduating with at least 7 math credits in high school. That’s a lol I think. In college I’ll double major in music education and meteorology, meteorology being the math heavy part. Meteorology requires a high level of understanding of mathematics and computers to create forecasts and software to forecast with. As of right now, I’m in dual enrollment precal, dual credit AP Statistics, and if you want to count it as a math course( I didn’t in my counting of credits) dual enrollment AP Physics 1. I plan to take AP Calculus BC next year. Sooo, yeah. I like STEM. I already took AP computer science a, and an engineering class.

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That's what's weird, because the Supreme Court is supposed to be independent of politics, but as we know that's an alternative fact.

From the sound of it, Brett Kavanaugh seems like he respects precedent at the level of David Souter. At the same time, the president did promise to appoint justices to overturn Roe, so idk.

 

Politics plays a huge huge role in music education, from money being allocated to programs to many directors being

LGBT. Lots of people hate talking about it, but shunning yourself from conversation prevents your views from growing. Disagreement is a very beautiful thing and everyone gets smarter because of it, so long as everyone keeps an open mind and one doesn't succumb to ad hominem.

 

Double majoring is tough. Hopefully it works out though. It's impossible to double engineering with anything at most colleges as you're already gonna struggle to graduate on time, so my Econ major turned into a minor, which turned into me just not taking it anymore.

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I actually saw a somewhat nasty interaction on this board. Basically someone telling another person they weren't qualified enough to have a certain opinion. The other person deescalated the situation nicely, but that's how rivalries start, with a few contentious students and parents claiming they represent their groups on twitter, Facebook, or even a message board just like this.

 

How serious a candidate Beto has become actually shocks me. I find him to be principled and willing to work bipartisanly so I plan to vote for him barring any October surprises. I still predict he will lose however and I understand the concerns people have about him.

Makes me wonder if dems will send a serious opponent against Cornyn in 2020.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Back to math for a moment. I love how music is an audible expression of math. My favorite intentional example of this is the use of the Fibonacci sequence as the foundation for the Tool song Lateralus. I've seen Tool perform this song live 26+ times and it never fails to move me. (I'd have to go count ticket stubs to give an exact number. At some point along the way I stopped keeping track.)

 

For maximum enjoyment of this student project video I strongly recommend great speakers, or better yet, excellent headphones. High volume is also a requirement. Go ahead and risk a bit of your hearing. Feel the power. I promise it will be worth it.

 

https://youtu.be/wS7CZIJVxFY

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I actually saw a somewhat nasty interaction on this board. Basically someone telling another person they weren't qualified enough to have a certain opinion. The other person deescalated the situation nicely, but that's how rivalries start, with a few contentious students and parents claiming they represent their groups on twitter, Facebook, or even a message board just like this.

 

How serious a candidate Beto has become actually shocks me. I find him to be principled and willing to work bipartisanly so I plan to vote for him barring any October surprises. I still predict he will lose however and I understand the concerns people have about him.

Makes me wonder if dems will send a serious opponent against Cornyn in 2020.

 

An unrelated note, but I'm fairly certain I appreciate your username.

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