full circle

last day of class, and a lot of thinking.

why is Stata’s design centered around blue and tan? is that a complementary pair?

why do I deserve a recitation instructor like Mark Stuart Day? my usual example of overdoing it was my dissertation committee; it consisted of the scariest—Barbara Liskov, who went on to win the Turing award, and Butler Lampson, who also won the Turing award, and so on… it’s all good until the dream breaks and you don’t graduate. relatives and friends attending my graduation were sent to our child’s baptism instead.

why do I care about people? how is it noticeable enough to the point that every one of the students in my recitations pointed it out when I asked for feedback? is that an unconscious thing?

I don’t think these questions have satisfying answers; they probe pretty deeply.

also, things really came full circle. I passed on Mark’s decades-long experiential advice to my own students less than an hour later, as if I’d been in his shoes. they, in turn, may pass that on further.

John approached me after recitation ended. wow, so Latter-day Saints have stricter, more conservative beliefs than us Catholics? wasn’t aware of that. or much else, for that matter. wonder if he’d corrected the woman who wrongly assumed that his work in quantum physics was enough justification for derailing religion.

seems like everything integrates into a circle. not in the numerical sense—seems like all of life is a circle. the Lord comes and goes, the Lord comes and goes again. people are born, people die. classes diverge, classes converge. seasons come, seasons go. friends arrive, friends depart.

is that generalization, or is it fact?