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So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.


The Profile


Zanzibar
Age. 39
Gender. Female
Ethnicity. that of my father and his father before him
Location Altadena, CA
School. Other
» More info.
The World









The Link To Zanzibar's Past
This is my page in the beloved art community that my sister got me into:

Samarinda

Extra points for people who know what Samarinda is.
The Phases of the Moon Module
CURRENT MOON
Croc Hunter/Combat Wombat
My hero(s)
Only My Favorite Baseball Player EVER


Aw, Larry Walker, how I loved thee.
The Schedule
M: Science and Exploration
T: Cook a nice dinner
W: PARKOUR!
Th: Parties, movies, dinners
F: Picnics, the Louvre
S: Read books, go for walks, PARKOUR
Su: Philosophy, Religion
The Reading List
This list starts Summer 2006
A Crocodile on the Sandbank
Looking Backwards
Wild Swans
Exodus
1984
Tales of the Alhambra (in progress)
Dark Lord of Derkholm
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Lost Years of Merlin
Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers (in progress)
Atlas Shrugged (in progress)
Uglies
Pretties
Specials
A Long Way Gone (story of a boy soldier in Sierra Leone- met the author! w00t!)
The Eye of the World: Book One of the Wheel of Time
From Magma to Tephra (in progress)
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Harry Potter 7
The No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency
Introduction to Planetary Volcanism
A Child Called "It"
Pompeii
Is Multi-Culturalism Bad for Women?
Americans in Southeast Asia: Roots of Commitment (in progress)
What's So Great About Christianity?
Aeolian Geomorphology
Aeolian Dust and Dust Deposits
The City of Ember
The People of Sparks
Cube Route
When I was in Cuba, I was a German Shepard
Bound
The Golden Compass
Clan of the Cave Bear
The 9/11 Commission Report (2nd time through, graphic novel format this time, ip)
The Incredible Shrinking Man
Twilight
Eclipse
New Moon
Breaking Dawn
Armageddon's Children
The Elves of Cintra
The Gypsy Morph
Animorphs #23: The Pretender
Animorphs #25: The Extreme
Animorphs #26: The Attack
Crucial Conversations
A Journey to the Center of the Earth
A Great and Terrible Beauty
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Dandelion Wine
To Sir, With Love
London Calling
Watership Down
The Invisible
Alice in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Host
The Hunger Games
Catching Fire
Shadows and Strongholds
The Jungle Book
Beatrice and Virgil
Infidel
Neuromancer
The Help
Flip
Zion Andrews
The Unit
Princess
Quantum Brain
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
No One Ever Told Us We Were Defeated
Delirium
Memento Nora
Robopocalypse
The Name of the Wind
The Terror
Sister
Tao Te Ching
What Paul Meant
Lao Tzu and Taoism
Libyan Sands
Sand and Sandstones
Lost Christianites: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
The Science of God
Calculating God
Great Contemporaries, by Winston Churchill
City of Bones
Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne
Divergent
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Old Man and the Sea
Flowers for Algernon
Au Bonheur des Ogres
The Martian
The Road to Serfdom
De La Terre � la Lune (ip)
In the Light of What We Know
Devil in the White City
2312
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Red Mars
How to Be a Good Wife
A Mote in God's Eye
A Gentleman in Russia
The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism
Seneca: Letters from a Stoic
The Juanes Module


Juanes just needed his own mod. Who can disagree.
The Rocky Road to Excellence
Friday. 11.9.12 6:04 pm
Today my boss was like, "How many time-steps did you put for each day?" I thought it was 96, but I wasn't sure. We were talking in front of 15 people, so I decided not to guess.

"I'm not sure," I said. "What do you suggest, given the resolution of my model?"
"I suggest once every 15 minutes," he said. I wasn't sure if he said "15" or "50"
"And how many times a day is that?" I asked.
He looked at me like I was the dumbest person alive. "24 times 4," he said.
"96" said someone who was more helpful. Dammit.

Right after the meeting I had to go and tell him that I had made a stupid mistake in calculating something else and the results that I had shown him earlier were therefore wrong. The other post-doc who started here at the same time as I did was there when this happened, and he gave me some tips for how I can do better next time. Thanks. You can see why during the past year I haven't asked for much help.

But this year is different. This year I'm going to accomplish what I came here to accomplish, no matter how many stupid questions I have to ask and no matter how many times my boss has to look at me like I just asked who invented the Pythagorean theorem. Through a clever plan of asking my post-doc rival to explain things to me, secretly reading thick tomes of atmospheric science behind everyone's backs, and asking my boss to explain things when he assumes I already know them, I will become a badass atmospheric scientist. Because the only thing worse than looking stupid is allowing your fear of looking stupid to keep you from ever getting any smarter. Plus, once I have taken the french for every piece of knowledge they have, I will move back to the USA and nobody will be the wiser.

Because the best way to get people to listen to you is to have useful things to say.
Because the best way to get your peers to respect is to be the best.


EXCELLENCE IN ALL THINGS!
Recommended by 1 Member
undisputed
3 Comments.


I thought this entry was going to be about ice cream in some way.

Regardless, I'm impressed by your ability to not be discouraged too much to ask questions you need to expand your knowledge. I read something on a blog once that talked about how the person thought Americans aren't really more stupid than the rest of the developed world, but they just come off that way because they're willing to ask questions, whereas people from other countries will often keep quiet if they don't know something.
» randomjunk on 2012-11-09 10:34:33

I prefer to look dumb than not getting my answers. After all, we cannot let fear to run our lives.
» renaye on 2012-11-09 11:00:43

Yup, the long thin uphill climb of excellence. Tell you what, it don't feel so good.
» jinyu on 2012-11-13 03:06:12

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