Friday 6 April 2012, our neighbor, an old and kind lady died. My mother, my wife and I were deeply saddened.
I woke up the next day a bit depressed and forced myself to go to work.
Sunday evening I started feeling pain in my chest; I drove to SV medical emergency.
ECG, blood test and x-ray did not reveal any abonrmalaties, however, the pain presisted.
They gave me the pill under the tongue, and I went home with some anti-anxiety medication.
Monday morning I felt better and I went to the office early.
Monday evening my mother started to complain about pain in her left rib cage; took her to emergency. ECG, Blood tests and x-ray did not reveal anything serious. The doctor said it was an inflammation.
I only went to work on Tuesday because my boss called for an important meeting.
Tuesday we were also suffering from several aircraft out of service, causing multiple delays.
I was exhausted and went home early. Of course Murphy visited me. My boss who rarely calls me, decided to call me that afternoon. My phone was not with me in the bedroom, so obviously I could not answer him.
I sent him a text message explaining why I could not answer his call.
Wednesday morning, we learned of the accidental death of one of our aircraft maintenance technicians while he was working on a B747-400 aircaft.
I pray to God I don't have another week like this.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Monday, April 9, 2012
Want a Better Life? Read a Book
By Michael W. Austin
Created Mar 15 2012 - 8:43am
"It may be seriously questioned whether the advent of modern communications media has much enhanced our understanding of the world in which we live."
This statement does not come from a contemporary critic of blogs, texting, social media, and the current glut of passive entertainment options, but the 1940 classic by Mortimer Adler, How to Read a Book. Obviously, this statement is just as (if not more) relevant today. We may know more about the world today—including mere facts and trivia—but we don't think very deeply about much of this, often accepting pre-packaged opinions rather than working through ideas ourselves or in discussion with a few other people.
As a professor, my sense is that some students have a more difficult time tracking a long argument or being patient enough to work through an issue over several days, weeks, or even months. Facebook status updates, tweets, blog posts (!), and text messages are relatively short and less demanding than reading a book. I believe that making a habit of reading books is useful for training the mind for critical thought. For this to occur, one must learn how to read well, or skillfully.
Reading is like other activities: the more effort you put forth and the more skill you possess, the better; but you'll only grow in skill as you challenge yourself. This means that you and I must read things that demand something of us. Portions of the book must be difficult to understand, or perhaps difficult to apply. But when we engage such books, the mind passes from understanding less to understanding more. This takes work, but unless you are reading merely for entertainment, some level of effort is required. And acquiring a deeper understanding about ourselves and the world we live in and applying it to life is conducive to building a better life and a better world.
Adler offers some advice about how to be a demanding reader as one interacts with books that have the capacity to change the reader. A demanding reader asks the following questions:
1. What is the book about as a whole?
What is the theme, or the main issue the book is focused on? What are the main subtopics covered related to the big idea of the book?
2. What are the main ideas, assertions, and arguments in the book?
What are the details of these, and how are they communicated?
3. Is the book true, in whole or in part?
What portions seem true? Which of your beliefs are challenged or affirmed?
4. So what?
What is the significance of the book, and the views it contains? Why does the author think it is important? Do you? Why or why not? What relevance does it have for human life?
To make a book truly your own, interact with it, "talk" with the author: underline major points and statements, circle key words and phrases, star/asterisk 10-12 major points/passages of the book, put numbers in the margin to track arguments or points of an argument made by the author, cross reference passages and points within the book, write at the top or bottom of a page, summarize a chapter in a few sentences at the beginning, ask questions and answer them in the margin.
I will close with a quote from Adler, which sums up why reading demanding books is important:
"A good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable—books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life" (pp. 340-341).
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To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl - Poem by Billy Collins
Do you realize that if you had started building the Parthenon on the day you were born,
you would be all done in only one more year?
Of course, you couldn't have done that all alone. So never mind;
you're fine just being yourself. You're loved for just being you.
But did you know that at your age Judy Garland was pulling down 150,000 dollars a picture,
Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory,
and Blaise Pascal had cleaned up his room
-- no wait, I mean he had invented the calculator?
Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life,
after you come out of your room and begin to blossom,
or at least pick up all your socks.
For some reason I keep remembering that Lady Jane Grey was queen of England when she was only 15.
But then she was beheaded, so never mind her as a role model.
A few centuries later, when he was your age, Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family,
but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies, four operas and two complete masses as a youngster.
But of course, that was in Austria at the height of Romantic lyricism,
not here in the suburbs of Cleveland.
Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15
or if Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17?
We think you're special just being you
-- playing with your food and staring into space.
By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes,
but that doesn't mean he never helped out around the house."
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