sore thumbs

My thumbs have matching blisters. All popped and yucky and painful and, at this moment, covered in matching Band-Aids. If only the kiddie Band-Aids were big enough, I could mix and match Sponge Bob and Cars. Instead, I have boring brown-colored fabric bandages. They do the trick, I guess. All this comes from raking leaves at Laura's yesterday. I should have brought work gloves, even though my work gloves are cheap and make my wrists itch. They would have been better than nothing. Laura did not get blisters, and I don't remember getting such heinous blisters when I raked leaves as a kid, so I must have been holding the rake wrong. It felt right, though, so maybe my hands changed. Anyway, there they are. After raking, we went inside and had hot chocolate and a fire and dinner and lemon tart (mmmm) and Natalie and I did puzzles and colored, and the dog sat on me several times. It was fun. I am easy to please. My boss thinks my standards are low, but I think that I am happier for it.

Another thing, unrelated: Last week as I walked off the ferry in the huge cattle-like throng of people (ferry cattle throng? ferry throng? as long as it's not ferry thong), I noticed that the woman walking next to me had a sticker on her pants leg. It was one of those long stickers with the size on it that they put on pants at department stores. I waffled between telling her about it and not. Is it too personal to point out the size sticker on her leg? Would it just be embarrassing all around? I have had similar issues when I have sat behind someone on the bus and noticed the big mole or spot on their ear. They obviously couldn't see it themselves - did they know about it? Is it just creepy to point it out? But they might die if I don't point it out. Anyway, I debated telling the sticker woman about the sticker and then thought about writing here that I had wimped out, and I was ashamed. So I told her. And she was grateful. She said that she had been walking around like that all week, and the pants weren't even new. Hmm. And then we had to walk next to each other the rest of the way around the ferry terminal, and it was indeed embarrassing. But I felt noble. The ironic thing is that if it had been a mole or scary-looking skin spot, I probably would not have said anything. That is more personal than a sticker. But potentially worse, too, so it is actually more important to speak up in that situation. It's a funny old world.

Ooh, I just realized that I began and ended this post with stories about skin blemishes. Sorry about that.

stereotype threat

I just read an interesting article (written by my favorite math prof from college) about increasing diversity in mathematics departments, faculty and graduate students. In it, she described a theory called "stereotype threat," which holds that the perception that others expect you to do poorly because of a societal stereotype actually makes you perform poorly. Not too hard to imagine, since we are told that people live up or down to our expectations all the time. There have been studies performed in which one group of people taking a math test are asked their race or gender before the test, and another group is asked the same thing after the test. African Americans who are asked their race before the test do worse and those who are asked their race after the test do better. In two instances (one of which was the math AP exam), one group of students were told before the test that the test was gender neutral (no gender biases, or not easier for one gender than the other), and another group was not told this. Women did better in the first group, after they had been reassured that their gender was not against them before the test. The interesting thing is that men did worse on the first test than the second, suggesting that their (and our) underlying assumption is that they, as men, will naturally do better than women on a difficult mathematics test. When they are warned that this is not so, they then exhibit stereotype threat, even though the stereotype has been removed. Because it was a positive stereotype from their point of view, removing the stereotype had a negative effect on their performance. Or so it seems, anyway. This happened on at least two different occasions - it is reproducible.

Verrrrrrry interesting.

A small happiness

Favorite authors who have short stories posted on their websites. Thank you, Julia Spencer-Fleming and S. J. Rozan!

Now, where to post this - here, on Goodreads, or on Facebook? Good thing I don't twitter or tweet. No worries about posting twice, though, since no one reads this anymore.

mmm, food

It is a rainy Saturday morning, misty and cool and very Northwest. The mist makes me think of rain forests, and I could go visit one on the island if I chose, but I have lots of other things to do. Instead of doing those things, I have been reading S. J. Rozan's Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mysteries and making chocolate oatmeal cookies. The books are mysteries, but Lydia's books are also about food. (Bill's are about music.) Chinese food mostly, but also other wonderful food, all in New York. Glistening greens, white scallops that taste like the sea, sproing-y garlic, tofu, shrimp, pork, sesame cakes, and lots and lots of tea. Real tea, not the herbal stuff I drink because real tea doesn't like me. Also pot roast and pumpernickel and liver sandwiches (which I do not yearn for) and many wonderful things. It makes me want to go to New York. Preferably with a native who knows where such things can be found, and will show me all I want to see and do and eat.

Instead of those things, I am making cookies. Chocolate oatmeal cookies, my mother's favorite. They are basically baked fudge with oatmeal. Incredibly sweet. I made the dough last night and am baking the cookies now, so of course I ate a lot of dough last night. I always do, and have accepted that I am dough-eater. I will surely pay. Anyway, I am pretty happy that I didn't go into a diabetic coma, and I can see that if and when I get diabetes, this particular recipe will be off limits to me. So much sugar. Really tasty. The first batch just came out, and my kitchen smells like a fairground, like doughnuts. Honestly, there isn't that much fat in them. I mean, no more than the usual. They smell heavenly. Along with the obscene amount of sugar, they also have an obscene amount of vanilla. I used Safeway brand vanilla, which claims to be "PURE vanilla extract", and also claims to have corn syrup in it. Ack! Does all commerical vanilla have corn syrup? I don't believe it. I'm shocked. I will try making my own vanilla, like Mother used to do. Well, she's doing it now for the first time, but she started before me.

All this sugar makes me yearn for vegetables and protein and tofu and meat.

The High and the Low

It is Easter and it is raining in an all-day sort of way. The sort of way that makes me want to stay inside and do nice things. But instead, I will probably stay inside and mope around doing a smidgeon of work and a smidgeon of laundry and some cooking. I did my nails, and I fear that there are nail bits all around my living room. I'm usually very careful with my nail bits, but I trimmed with abandon this morning, and things flew. Disturbing. There are good arguments for trimming your nails outside, where your nail bits can be left to rot (if that ever happens). But there are even better arguments for trimming your nails in private (probably inside), because no one really wants to be around other people's nail bits, especially when they are flying. During my epic journey to Maryland on Christmas, I was sitting fairly peacefully at the Philadelphia airport waiting for my flight (cancelled, no surprise), when the middle-aged couple sitting near me decided that it was a good time and place to floss their teeth and trim their nails. Finger nails, thankfully, but still. I felt like asking them if they also wanted to clean the grit out of their bellybuttons, and if they would like some privacy for that particular ablution. But I didn't. I glared instead, in a passive aggressive sort of way. It was a long day.

I'm glad to see that the captain of the Maersk Alabama has been rescued. I was worried. I hope that he and his family will be okay. I'm sorry the pirates were killed. It feels a little naive to worry about them and their families, but it feels closed-minded, arrogant, and cruel not to. Where do we draw the line between loving our fellow man and condoning really bad things? What is the difference between the person and the act? What if you want to forgive someone, but they don't acknowledge a fault? It's probably a good thing to learn to forgive anyway, but it's not always easy. I have forgiven the couple in the airport, but if they sat near me on the ferry and did the same thing, I would have a hard time. It's true, I don't know their story or the pirates' stories, and public nail-trimming is a far cry from piracy, but there are standards of behavior to be observed. Also, the sounds of the nail clippers really annoyed me.

In theory, I am full of tolerance. In practice, not so much.

Bread Pudding

I am making bread pudding. It is in the oven, and it smells heavenly - all cinnamon and nutmeg and vanilla. These are good, good smells! The timer just beeped, but the pudding is not set. I have never made bread pudding before, and used a mix of skim milk and soy milk in place of whole milk, so maybe it will never set. I'm okay with that, as long as the eggs are mostly cooked. Mmm. Yum.

Everybody is at Camp right now, but I am at home, making bread pudding. I'm okay with that, because I am cold and I know that I would be colder at Camp. Maybe. Also, I am going to an improv show tomorrow with Deb and Chris, and that will be fun. And I have to get my taxes done and this dumb paper. I keep on rewriting it, and it keeps on needing more rewriting. My aim is to have it done in two weeks, when Vaishali and Elliot and Ari and I go to Orcas Island for the weekend. That would be soooooo nice to have the paper done by then. At least submitted to John, if not to the journal. That's my goal. So that's what I'll be doing tomorrow when I'm not cleaning and going to the show. Fun, fun!

The bread pudding will help.

sunshine and work

It is Saturday and I am sitting at my computer because I'm supposed to be working. I have my flash drive plugged in and the files ready to open. My yellow legal pad is turned to the right page. I have a pen. I am all ready to go. But I don't wanna. I never do wanna at home. My home computer is for surfing the web and playing pop-top games. Generally, it is for wasting the largest amount of time possible, although I actually bought it to do work on at home. Today, I have made a pact with myself - no games until I do at least 2 hours of work. I'm not sure if that's a pact or not. It has to be two hours of actual work, not just two hours of sitting here. Now, it is lunch time, and it is sunny out (and cold), and so maybe I will eat lunch and then go outside, and return and do work later. It sounds great, but chances are that if I don't start work now, I never will.

I know, there is nothing startling in this post. Another goal for today is to get some photos off of my camera and onto my computer. If I do that, I will put one here. But that involves not going completely brain-dead when I sit at the computer. Tricky, tricky, tricky.

Still the best

see Sarah Palin pictures

Farewell, Mr. President

I have been dreaming about George W. Bush. Much to my surprise, my dreams are sympathetic to him. I am worried that he feels like a failure, that he is sad because so many people are so happy to see him go. In my dreams, people give him tender good-bye kisses. He's not so bad. On the other hand, in my last GWB dream, I am pretty sure that he murdered Dick Cheney with a wire whisk on a carousel. Some big leader murdered his second-in-command, in despair because he had finally realized just how badly his Number One had screwed him over. Thankfully, my subconscious did not dwell on how someone would murder another person with a wire whisk, or what the victim would then look like. A crowd of concerned citizens gathered to solve the murder mystery. An FBI agent listed all the suspicious clues at the scene. But the leader had fled.

All this tells me that I am an optimist at heart. I look for the best in people, even if the best is simply that the person is a good-hearted and complete idiot who is easily led. But in fact, I still have my doubts about ol' George. He may in fact be a complete idiot, but I wonder about his heart. Still, if he really was aiming for the best possible outcome throughout his presidency, which one must assume he was, then the result is very sad. It is sad to try so hard and to fail so miserably. That's me with teaching middle school - I tried hard, but boy, was I bad at it. I don't think it makes me a complete idiot. But it does mean that I was trying to do something that I was not at all meant to do, and no one was the better for it. I think George W. Bush has been trying to teach middle school for 8 years, when he should never have been put in charge of a classroom.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

What a load of crap that is. I heard that song on the radio the other day as I made my way through the snow storm to the airport and hotel, just so I could get to my early flight the next morning, after the big storm came through. I made it to the hotel, made it the airport, waited for hours with many stressed and frustrated people, and then the flight was finally canceled.

First it was delayed two hours - the airline called me at 4:00 am to tell me that, and then just as I was finally falling back asleep, Orbitz called me to tell me the same thing, but that my original check-in time still held, so I had to get up and over the airport at the same time. It turns out that I could check in from my hotel lobby, but I didn't know that at 5 AM, when Orbitz called. Then, when we were supposed to board, they said that it "would be a bit longer" because the covered walkway to the plane was frozen, and couldn't be extended to reach the side of the plane. They had to thaw it out. A little voice inside me knew right then that it was all downhill from there. Sure enough, it took 2 1/2 hours to de-ice the walkway. They finally let us on, and then we had to sit while they waited for the go ahead to leave, after which they would begin to de-ice the plane. They said that if they de-iced and then went up to the runway, we would just have to de-ice again. I think they were waiting for the weather to change or something. That never happened, so they canceled the flight, 5 1/2 hours after it was scheduled to depart. I started to get a hotel room for the night near the airport, but decided to just come home, which was an adventure in itself (not as much as it could have been, thank God). The power went out in my town just as the ferry docked, and I was seriously considering crying, since swearing out loud in public hadn't helped any. The taxi could barely get out of the ferry parking lot, and the driver was also being the dispatcher and so was on the phone constantly, it was still snowing, with 3-4 inches already on the ground, no power, and my feet were already frozen. But as we got closer to my apartment, there started to be signs of electricity. And I had power. Rarely have I been that thankful. It was off today for most of the day, but it came back on about 30 minutes ago, and again, I am super thankful.

The thing is, when I got to the airport on Sunday, and even when we were supposed to board, it was not snowing. It was cold and there was snow on the ground, but it was not snowing. By the time they let us board, it was snowing hard. If they hadn't taken so darn long thawing out the walkway to the plane, we could have left and I would be in Maryland now. Grr. As it is, the next flight I could get is on Christmas Day. Same itinerary, so I am going to stay at a hotel again Christmas Eve - isn't that the most depressing thing you've ever heard? I got one with a restaurant, but I'm too cheap to really splurge, so it's going to suck. I was able to push back my return flight also, so I will have the same length of time in Maryland, which is good. It would have been even better if the power had not gone out today, because I was planning on getting absolutely tons of work done today (and tomorrow and Wednesday). But the power went out, I lost the clever code I had just figured out, and then I spent the rest of the day with Laura, Carol, and Natalie. They have been without power since yesterday sometime. They have a nice wood-burning stove and a gas range, so they can cook and be warm (though not throughout the house), but they have no water without electricity. I had water, but no heat and no cooking. So they came over and bathed, and then we went out to lunch at the one restaurant open, and stopped off at Safeway because I had no food - I had eaten it all in honor of leaving for more than a week.

Yesterday sucked, but when I got home, I was so thankful to be in my own home, with my own bed and with power and food and heat. Lots of people were stranded at the airport. If I hadn't gotten out when I had, I might have been stranded there, too. The shuttles and taxis were swamped and were having trouble, since the roads were terrible. I have never seen the taxi line that long. Finally, the taxi drivers started shouting out the neighborhoods they were going to, so they could take multiple parties. I took the shuttle, and they were on a reduced schedule/plan/whatever - they would take people to the downtown hotels (and the ferry, yay), but not make any residential drop-offs. Got lucky there. And throughout the day, Cindy was so helpful. She had already gotten me the hotel room for the night before, and she went online and tracked the weather and news, and even offered to have her brother come out in his 4-wheel drive to pick me up. She is so sweet. And she is taking off tomorrow (with her brother, in his 4-wheel drive) to drive to Las Vegas to see their parents for Christmas. I'm worried about the roads. Las Vegas got snow last week, and it hasn't melted yet - amazing. Anyway, I am super grateful for Cindy, and for Mom, and Aunt Sally, and Marnie (my neighbor), and the shuttle driver, and Skip the Taxi Driver, and the power company (yay, Puget Sound Energy) and all their workers who are out there risking their lives to get our power back on. Yesterday could have been so much worse. I just hope that the trip on Thursday is better. But I am afraid it will not be, since we are expecting another storm tomorrow afternoon and evening and Wednesday morning, and Thursday is supposed to be cold. So I'm still not counting on getting of here.

I hope you are having a better Christmas week than I am. Be thankful for all that you have. There is a reason the Christmas story is at the darkest time of the year. Then again, as Laura said, "F**k Solstice!"

Election Sunday

It is the Sunday before the election, and I am nervous. I am afraid that people will be complacent and not vote. I am afraid that the Republicans have "fixed" the vote in key states, by successfully challenging legitimate voters or otherwise keeping people from voting. I know that they have been prevented from doing just that in at least one state, but they are crafty and have no morals. Not that all Republicans have no morals, but the party leaders are certainly moral-deficient. Like iron-deficient, but this deficiency affects the entire world. I don't think that anyone reads this blog (understandable, given how rarely I update it), but if you do read it before Tuesday, get out and vote! And do it right - if you have to fill in little circles with your pencil or pen, fill them in completely and stay within the lines. If you have to connect two parts of an arrow, follow the example and do it properly. If you have to punch out a hole in your ballot, make sure that chad is not hanging. And if you have to press a touch-screen button, you had better pray. Let's get out the vote, people!

short

The constellation Orion is on my chest. His belt, anyway. Kind of freaky.

looking ahead

This morning, I had to reschedule my dentist appointment from next Monday to sometime later. Shingles and lying in a dentist's chair and being all contagious just don't go well together, and probably it hurts, too. And I bet the hygienist wouldn't be so thrilled. So I rescheduled for Monday, Nov. 3. And now I am worried - what if something happens to me in the dentist's chair or while I am en route to or from the dentist, and I can't vote the following day? Scary thought. Calming thought: Kitsap County does vote-by-mail for everyone. Given the number of political signs out for some local person today, I figured the ballots were coming today. Nope, but it should come before the 3rd, so I have a chance. In the meantime, I'm dealing with my second bout of shingles in 25 years, and I am really too young to be able to say that. The upside is that I am no longer worrying about possible scopolamine toxicity. And I am allowing myself to eat ice cream and Wheat Thins. I'm the only person I know who gains weight when sick.

Added Saturday morning: It turns out that my ballot really did arrive yesterday, as I suspected. I just hadn't looked at my mail carefully. The ridiculously easy geo-quiz questions on the National Geographic that arrived yesterday put all thoughts of the rest of the mail out of my head. So did the itchiness and tickliness of my torso. gaaaaaaaaaah! I ate all the ice cream ... yesterday. oops.

15 seconds

My choir is on YouTube! You can finally hear what we sound like. Someone posted a video of parts of our performance of Gabriel Faure's Requiem from last Sunday. The sound quality is better than the visuals, I promise. I am up there on the stage, somewhere in the middle of the first row. Go listen!

update

Sorry for the long silence. I have been silent because I have felt especially boring lately - nothing to report. I have been obsessing over a mystery series (by Julia Spencer-Fleming). That type of obsessing is always a little embarrassing, so I try not to obsess directly to other people or, say, here. So I won't. Instead, I just admit to the obsessing without going into details.

Mom and Dad were here for a couple of days, dropping off lots of boxes of My Stuff From Their House. In the unlikely event that they brought it all, I am now officially out of their house, all grown up. It only took 35 years. I haven't yet opened any of the boxes, since I have no place to put any of the stuff, but I now have all the books and mementos of my childhood that I am ever likely to have, along with some dishes and glassware from my ancestors. Not sure which ancestors. Great-aunts, mostly. So not really ancestors. Anyway, I have no place to put them.

Mom and Dad drove out from Maryland with all these boxes, and were here for less than 2 days. As Mom said, it's the journey that's important, not the destination. I'm the destination. Now they are on their way to Oregon to see Mom's sister, and then will start back east. They have had a nice trip, and we had a good time yesterday. My choir performed at the big fancy concert hall (Benaroya) in Seattle, as part of the Day of Music and Art, in honor of the10th anniversary of the hall. Everything was free (mostly), and we sang in the middle of it. Faure's Requiem, which we performed in May as well. It was very nice. Mom (or maybe Dad) said that when the singers (that was us) opened our folders, the lights on the stage reflected off our music and up onto our faces. We all glowed. How nice. After the concert, we had a big lunch at Elliot's, the seafood restaurant by the water, and then braved Pike Place Market in search of croissants (mmm, the French bakery). Then we braved the even scarier ferry terminal, which was filled with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of sad Seahawks fans. The Seattle Seahawks had just lost their second game of the season (football). The ferry terminal was full of depressed blue-clad people, with a couple of sedate (but secretly ecstatic) 49-er fans. Once we got on the ferry, it was very nice. We sat up top in the wind and the sun, and breathed in the exhaust from the engine house. How lovely.

Now Mom and Dad are gone, and I have called in sick to work. I was planning on calling in sick anyway, but I actually have a sore throat and was achey last night, and am generally pooped, so I feel somewhat justified. And I'm a little blue, as expected. It is loud here - my apartment building is getting new siding and new windows on the back, both good things and loud. It is a beautiful day - a nice day to work outside and put on new siding, I would think. Perhaps I should go move plants away from the wall on my deck. Yes, I should.

another book review

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a great book. From it's title, I thought it was about how doctors figure out how to make their patients better. But instead, it is about how the medical profession makes itself and its performance better. Gawande classifies the methods he sees in several ways. First, there is diligence, doing right, and ingenuity. He explores these ideals while discussing the campaign to get doctors and nurses to wash their hands in hospitals, improving the field of obstetrics, saving the lives of more and more wounded soldiers, and improving life expectancy for people with cystic fibrosis. He emphasizes that improvement is possible, even with the tools and techniques we already have. We have to use them diligently, every day. It's not easy. At the end of the book, he has 5 suggestions for improving performance and generally making a difference in one's career. His audience is typically medical students, but these suggestions work for everyone:



1. Ask an unscripted question. In other words, get to know the people you are working with. They will mean more to you, and you will work with them better. It's just good for society, too.



2. Don't complain. Complaining drags us all down. I love to complain, so this is a hard one for me. But I also know that negative energy is infectious, and kill energy and creativity. But positive energy is also infectious. Neither he nor I am encouraging people to be chipper and annoying - just don't drag everybody down. Change the subject if necessary.



3. Count something. That I can do! Gawande's point is, find a question that interests you in your profession, and observe it. In order to improve performance, you need information on current performance, and also information on why current performance is what it is. So count something. Then give me the data and I will analyze it for you.



4. Write something. Gawande says you should show your writing to other people, write for an audience. I think that you can learn a lot about yourself and your profession through writing, even if no one else sees it. It helps to clarify thoughts.



5. Change. Don't be afraid to make changes when they are necessary.



Here is a quote that I like from the book, the essence of the book in one paragraph:



"Arriving at meaningful solutions is an inevitably slow and difficult process. Nonetheless, what I saw was: better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try."



Gawande is a good writer, and his essays are interesting individually. Despite what I might have indicated here, he does not preach. He provides examples and offers up the lessons he learned from them. And he writes about really interesting topics. In addition to the ones mentioned above, he writes about doctors who participate in executions, trying to innoculate 4.2 million children in 3 days in India with a polio vaccine, the difficult question of patients' dress (or lack thereof) during medical examinations, doctors' income, and the extreme and pedestrian steps that some surgeons must take every day to treat patients in public medical clinics in India. Interesting stuff, well-written, reads quickly.


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Happy Birthday, Em!

Here is a big happy belated birthday to Emily! Hippo birdie 2 ewes, Em! I hope you had a good one! :-) I miss you.

The Matt Video

Others have blogged about this video, and now that I have watched it, I must blog about it, too. You should watch it. It made me laugh, and then smile, and then cry (in a good way). It's hokey and sweet, and it makes the point that the most serious place on earth really is the Demilitarized Zone in Korea. And that you don't have to dance well - you just have to dance.

Ooh, was that lightening??! Be still, my beating heart! Something to write home about. Hmm. Guess not.

Another Book Review

Sanditon: Jane Austen's Last Novel Completed by Jane Austen

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book was by Jane Austen and "Another Lady," mostly by the other lady. The first 11 chapters were by Austen, mostly, and it was obvious. By the end of the 11th chapter, though, there was no real indication of where the plot would go, except for using other Austen novels as a guide (seems reasonable), so most of the plot is by the other lady, as well. It is pretty much a published piece of fan fiction. Not bad fan fiction, but not great fan fiction, either, and not even close to the author it is meant to honor. That said, I enjoyed reading it, once I decided not to hold the bulk of the book up to Austen's level.



One thing the book did for me is to cast into fairly sharp relief those qualities of Jane Austen's novels that I like: the language, the social criticism and commentary, the character development, and the multi-dimensionality of the book's structure, among other features. This book had the language and the groundwork for the social commentary in the first eleven chapters, but those were short chapters and there was no room for character development or multiple dimensions. By the end of the 11th chapter, we knew very little about the apparent heroine, and the supposed hero had been mentioned once (and so maybe they were not the hero and heroine, after all!). The rest of the book is high on personal criticism, but is one-dimensional and is missing the social commentary, language, and character development. Another Lady tells us repeatedly about the selfishness of certain characters, practically rubs our faces with it, in a way that Jane Austen would never have done. Another Lady tried to capture Austen's language and the contemplative tone that most of her books have, but she didn't succeed. Still, it was fun and not actively painful. Plus, with two elopements on the same day, it's hard to complain.


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Book Review

The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved & Why Numbers Are Like Gossip by Keith Devlin

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
Devlin gives a hypothesis about how mathematical thinking evolved. He claims that the capacity for mathematical thinking is the same as the capacity for language (i.e., syntax), since syntactical thinking allows us to think "off-line" about objects, concepts, plans that are not in our immediate environment. Off-line thinking may be stimulated by non-environmental cues (e.g., thoughts), whereas on-line thinking is always stimulated by the immediate environment. Off-line thinking allows us to think about abstract ideas or objects, necessary for mathematical thinking.

Devlin also claims that doing math is like watching (or creating) a soap opera - it is all about relationships, but between mathematical objects instead of people. He likens mathematics to gossip.

Devlin's theories sound plausible to me, and it certainly seems that language and abstract thinking are related. It is interesting to read someone's ideas of exactly how they might be related. He gets into linguistics and archeology, too. It is also good to see someone describe, or attempt to describe, mathematical thinking for people who dislike or simply don't do math. I think this would be a worthwhile book for teachers of school math (arithmetic especially), since Devlin describes why arithmetic is difficult (his theory) and how it differs from true math. Anyone interested in math education should read it since it relates math to language and gossip, etc. Lots of good information, or at least some interesting ideas.

I don't like the way the book is written, however, neither the organization nor the writing style. For a mathematician, Devlin does not produce a neat, clean argument, although all the pieces may be there. He spends too much time saying what he will say and what he has said, and drags out what he says with extra words. Not concise. Maybe his publisher or editor wanted a long book. If one can get past the writing, organization, and repeated plugs for his other books, though, one will find an interesting, worthwhile theory.


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