i’m maskingi’m asking youto help me quietthe voices inside my headthat tell methat i can’t this fearthis spherearound meis a poisonous cocoonits safety comesat the costof slow suffocation a part aparthas come togetherto gatherthe pieces of my selfand leave me pronealonefragileisolatedabandoned until there is no more youto pull me out ofthis suffocating fear 03.22.22
Author: Clio
Logs, Roots, and Fractions
How notation gets in the way of understanding The other day I tweeted this: Objectively, I realize that \(\sqrt2\), \(\log6\), and \(\frac57\) are all specific numbers and that they’re the simplest way to write those specific numbers. But I struggle with convincing my brain of that. And if I struggle, I don’t at all wonder…
March 12, 2022
When I was a child, there was a PSA about the new kid in school. The child was a loner until one of the established kids reached out and made them feel welcome. Then everyone realized that the new kids was okay, and there were smiles and laughs. When I was a child, I went…
The Logarithmic Rules
In this item, I will show how the basic logarithmic rules, including the Change of Base formula, follow from this equivalency: \[\log_b m = n \Leftrightarrow b^n = m\] For the ease of reading, I’ll generally use the natural base (\(e\)) and the natural logarithm (\(\ln\)). However, everything here applies to all valid bases (\(b…
Thoughts on Memorization (Facebook repost)
There are two basic forms of “memorization”: (a) Rote, through the repetition of the specifically, often decontextualized, data and (b) Habituation, through the repetition of acts that involve the information to be “memorized”. When we think of school, we tend to think of the first kind, because that’s the more efficient in the short-term, but…
My 52nd Birthday
March 4, 2020 was my 52nd birthday. A virus called COVID-19 had been infecting the population in China and other countries, and the US was starting to express concerns. We hadn’t had any definitively confirmed cases yet in Michigan, but within two weeks, schools would be shut down as a precaution. March 12 was the…
How Notation Obscures Patterns
This is another stab for me at what continues to prove to be a complicated topic: How our mess of mathematical notation obfuscates key patterns. This is also a rough draft of thoughts, not meant to be a polished product. In Algebra II recently, the unit is radical notation and rational exponents. That means that…
Canceling is Not Censorship
(A Twitter thread) Effective censorship requires systemic power. This is related to the conversation about *ism and the non-existent “reverse *ism”: I can have prejudices that are negative about cisgender people, for instance, but I don’t have the power of the system behind me. When we transgender folk “cancel” JKR and DC, our power is…
The Dream of the Canoe
Last night I had a dream. In the relevant part of the dream, I was walking along a river where I was supposed to meet my father. My older brother had arranged for us to ride down the river in a canoe carved from a single tree trunk by an indigenous elder. Every year, they…
pebble
later that night,after the moon had hidden behind the clouds,i found myself on the sidewalkoutside your house i picked up a small rockand thought about throwing itagainst your windowto wake you up but i was afraid i would breakthe glass so instead i held the pebble in my handand thought of you 01.09.22