After crashing and burning in Organic Chemistry at UW over the summer, I signed up for Intro to O Chem at Seattle Central and just finished the first week. It was great–better textbook, better instructor, more class time. Twelve weeks of general chemistry wasn’t enough prep for UW O Chem. I realized pretty quickly that I was going to choke, passed the first exam but tanked on the second. I was actually relieved that I didn’t get the lowest score. Quite a low bar in other words. However, I kept going to class and liked the lectures despite the unappealing instructor, guy who shut down questions and attributed his demeanor to his “harsh, Eastern European upbringing.” I felt bad for the TA that led our section. I’m sure she had very little mentorship and it was more useful to watch Kahn Academy videos than go to her section. Overall, it was an enlightening experience. Now I get what undergrads go through in these giant weeder classes. Profs who would rather be in their labs doing research and not much access to quality support or guidance. My son Patrick delights in imitating him, calling him Guaco, a bastardization of his name and saying horrible things in what sounds like a messed-up Russian accent. Patrick makes merciless fun of my failure to grasp concepts, seeing how many times he can insert fail or failure into random conversational sentences, but when I really bombed that exam he wrapped his arms around me and says “it’s OK, you’re still the best mom.”
When I took Intro to Chemistry at Seattle Central last winter quarter I felt nervous, just like I always do before starting a class, any class, even if it’s just a language class, or a new job, or having to get up early for flight. The stakes couldn’t have been lower. Not much in the way of consequences if it didn’t work out, but I wanted it to work out, and not just work out. I want to be good at it because I was so curious about the subject. I had started reading Issac Asminov’s A Short History of Chemistry and admired the painstaking experiments early chemists did to find out why elements to what they do and under what conditions. I showed up to class that first Monday morning and it was ghastly. The teacher was bumbling and inarticulate and I actually felt so sorry for him that I resisted the impulse to gather up all my stuff and high tail it out there and instead stayed through the whole dismal session. I signed up for a different section with a teacher who had a passion for the subject and for teaching. He created a fun, exploratory atmosphere in the class. A stark contrast to the UW chem prof.
That winter my friend Kate and I started meditating at the Shambhala Center in Madison Valley. I have trouble sitting still and walking meditations drive me nuts because I start thinking about how slowly we’re walking and looking at peoples’ socks. I think it’s odd that atoms are mostly open space–a void really. Pema Chödrön, the American Buddhist nun, talks about getting used to groundlessness, that nothing is permanent and that we have to stop clinging and grasping to people, things, and ways of thinking So Buddhists and chemists have that in common. There IS nothing underneath us. Just electrostatic forces. Totally weird. Anyway, that’s what I think of when meditating.
Successive Approximation 