A Treatise Against Spiral Notebooks

Spiral notebooks are a common thing to find in the hands of students, and they are ubiquitous on store shelves during the "back-to-school" commercial cash-in. Many class syllabi include spiral notebooks by name in their class requirements, while I detest them.

Spiral notebooks experience the following problems:

• They have a finite length. If you run out, you must carry two, but more commonly there is plenty of wasted space at the end.
• They have no modularity. At best you can tear pages out, but that further decreases the capacity and is always messy (leaving a trail of chaff behind either on the paper itself or in a thin strip on the spiral).
• You cannot reorder pages, mix, or match.
• The contents are limited solely to the included notebook paper unless you make a mess of 8.5x11 paper with crumpled edges.

Small three-ring binders (~one inch) offer the following advantages:

• The potential for organization is greatly increased since anything hole-punched can be included in any location among the loose-leaf paper.
• You can freely add paper as you need and reallocate leftover blank sheets when you are done.
• Pages can be reordered or even rewritten if necessary.
• Papers can be taken out and put back in indefinitely.
• Many binders offer folder pockets, and you can add hole-punched folders to the rings. This adds significant organizational capabilities, potentially becoming an all-in-one solution for managing an individual class’ papers and keeping desk space usage (and fumbling with materials during class!) to a minimum.
• Binders are quite a bit more resistant to being bent than notebooks.

I include this list in all my one inch binders in case I need to justify my substitution. Fortunately, I have never had issues with my binders. I'm glad too—my system of separate binders with folders for each individual class has kept me quite organized.

Writing is Hard

Writing is hard. The act itself is not difficult, no matter the medium. Finding the right words usually isn't too hard either. I have trouble hammering out something to say when I don't actually have anything to say.

On this blog, until now I've gotten lucky. (Yes, this post "just got meta.") If I am working with a subject that actually interests me, I can synthesize text with ease because the thoughts come naturally. Papers merely explicating on research are already frustrating, but I am really up against a wall when I am expected to draw some conclusion or offer my own thoughts if there is little pertinent thought in my head to begin with. For the same reason, outlining and other pre-writing techniques don't help. "Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you."? No thanks.

It's difficult to articulate how I feel when I look at a blank document and mentally calculate: 0 out of 4 pages completed. I press on. 1/15 of desired length. My head hits the desk a few times. Repeat an indefinite amount. Then it's 3 am and I'm lamenting looking forward to sleeping tomorrow instead of tonight. Length not yet quite to assignment expectations; quality far below personal expectations.

An analogy would be to be told that you must get in front of an audience and speak--only on this subject, meeting these criteria, for [amount of time] minutes. Here's this scenario in screenplay format:

(screen pans to SUBJECT's face)
LEADER: You have been selected for today's drill. Proceed to the podium and speak to your fellow subjects on the subject of alpaca breeding habits, refraining from any use of technical jargon and including your own personal reflection, for 10 minutes. Begin.
SUBJECT: (10 minutes of blank stares, nervous twitching, "Uhhhhh...", etc.)

This is Oscar material. I just need to write the rest of it.

Reaction to 'Very Young Girls'

The documentary Very Young Girls leaves us with a rather optimistic view of the situation that leaves me not sure where to stand on how to address the situation. On one hand, the film opens with a compelling snapshot that human sex trafficking in urban America is a real problem. The majority of the movie shows the aftereffects of the life on the victims and how the GEMS program comes to their aid. At the conclusion, most of the featured victims are shown to be making progress, with only one or two exceptions.

The focus of the film was on the personal stories of the victims, with less focus on the problem itself. In that way, the movie, as a whole, functions more as oral history than a public service announcement. Critically, the film could have explored more solutions to the entire problem. While the work that GEMS does is excellent and has made progress, the root of the problem is not addressed in the film. In VYG, GEMS is presented as helping victims only after they have become victims, with rehabilitation efforts. The opening of the movie was the most compelling because it showed the victims' fall into trafficking--the very thing that needs preventative measures.

The 45 second footage of the education meeting for johns and Carolina's 30 day jail sentence show the failure of the criminal justice system to address the problem in perspective. Additionally, the interviews with the girls about their entrance to prostitution and their parents show a wealth of issues that cause the problem in the first place, from education, to poverty, to social patterns and dynamics. Unfortunately, due to the sense of closure presented in the film, the casual viewer would not realize the depth of work that still needs to be done.

Analytically Elevating

[At the time of this writing, I was a senior at University of Illinois Laboratory High School.]

For the majority of my time here, the elevator has been officially closed to students. Without getting into specifics about "sand" or lettuce (though the true culprit was eventually discovered), student elevator privileges have been a point of contention for some time. When my brothers were here (fall 1993 to spring 2000) the elevator was completely off-limits, though "you could unlock it with dimes." Shortly after Ms. Kovacs arrived, she fought to open the elevator to the students. But by the time I arrived here, bad student conduct saw it closed again and again until it was made permanent. How could the student body be so careless? Digging through my email archives, frequent issues cited included:

• Students running from at least halfway down the hallway and jostling and running into other students on their way to the elevator.
• Students running and then jumping into the elevator.
• Students yelling for the elevator to be held as they are running down the hallway.
• Students riding the elevator when they only need to travel up or down one floor.
• Students crowding the elevator with more than 10 people.

Most of these are valid points, and I would personally question any student who engaged in such misbehavior. However, all this led to this:

Students may use the elevator [only] IF:

• they are injured and can't walk up/down the steps
• are caring a large instrument or school needed item--check in the office
• with a teacher and have been asked to ride with them
• after school activities--use the elevator to get to the proper floor
• with a pass from the office

Drawing from my previous blog entry, I can tell that the entire situation needs some constructive thinking, so we can increase student liberty and avoid more of this:

DO NOT RIDE THE ELEVATOR BEGINNING MONDAY FOR TWO WEEKS;
THIS IS AN HONOR SYSTEM--VIOLATE IT AND THERE WILL BE CIRCUMSTANCES.

---

The first question to consider is "What guidelines are we looking for in elevator usage?" This is my list:

• Prevent physical and mechanical damage to the elevator.
• Allow faculty, staff, and the injured timely use of the elevator.

Really, that's it. With specific reference to the elevator, these two concerns are all the complaints and drama boil down to. Anything else is simply remaining civil.

With this in mind, what rules should we establish to maximize both student privileges and success of the guidelines? I present the following:

Evan's Rational Elevator Rules

• Students may not use the elevator during five-minute passing periods, including 7:55-8:00 am, with the following exceptions:
• significant injury
• transporting a large or heavy object
• with a teacher (at the teacher's discretion)
• with a pass from the office
• At other times, when the halls and stairwells are not busy, including free periods, lunch, and before/after school, students may use the elevator.
• Do not crowd people in the elevator. Be smart.
• Be gentle in and around the elevator.
• Do not hold the elevator excessively.

Analytically, these rules satisfy the guidelines. They specifically avoid situations where individuals are inconvenienced by improper elevator usage, and they also avoid inconveniencing students at large as the overbearing blanket ban does now. At the same time, they avoid being too arbitrary with the terms of general conduct. You could summarize the last three as "Don't be a moron."

As a side note, there is no reason why one-floor elevations should be prohibited. That particular quibble exists in the interest of saving time, which is already addressed. In theory, it could cause others to wait longer, but considering that the rules already account for peak traffic jams, such a scenario is called a corner case in computer science. Also, I avoided adding rules that micromanage general student behavior and attitude. The complaint about running from halfway down the hallway has little to do with the elevator per se.

Uni High should be known as a place where the spirit of the law trumps the letter of the law (as long as it is in good faith). I used to hear the word trust used often. If someone safely rides the elevator when traffic and waiting times are not issues, there is zero reason for them to get in trouble.

I will keep working on this, and I hope to see some progress made.

A Reaction to Reactions

[At the time of this writing, I was a senior at University of Illinois Laboratory High School.]

It was about a year ago that the school administration proposed modifying the fall finals schedule to work so that the eight class periods of the day each got a block of time, instead of constructing a special three-day schedule where all members of a class meet at once. There were perfectly good reasons for this, yet the events that followed severely disappointed me in the students here.

In particular, the Class of 2012 flew into an absolute outrage as if the new finals schedule was an atrocity exacted on them by a cold and unfeeling administration. Soon after, a Facebook group was started named, "WE ARE UPSET WITH THE NEW FINALS SCHEDULE" and just about the entire student body present on Facebook was invited to join. The posts in this were simply complaints about how awful it was that the seniors could not use the previous wealth of free time during finals to "study." (It should go without saying that such a last-minute cramming technique is not advisable.) Students also complained how "unfair" it was that sections of class met separately and how they were all disadvantaged by the potential for cheating by others. I started a public Google Document for people to collect tangible ideas for solutions since they consider it a problem worth fixing, and I got nothing more than what I wrote myself.

But the general problem certainly isn't limited to one specific group. At the end of my sophomore year, the schedules my class received for junior year seemed to have a lot of problems. So, I thought constructively and made a Google Document and shared it with the class to collect legitimate concerns. After a few days when activity slowed, I submitted it to the administration. There must have been some failure in communication, because I felt some note of offense by those I talked to. Indeed, I must have been misrepresented behind the scenes (perhaps at faculty meetings) because in the fall of the following year I was asked about my "schedule bitch blog" by a faculty member.

Particularly in the student body, there is not enough thought given to giving calm and constructive responses to a perceived issue. I see examples of people holding a difference of opinion with some decision made higher up, and instead of talking it out to actually fix the problem, they hold it as a grudge or complain to others in a rather vitriolic fashion. I don't understand why it is common to misrepresent people who make decisions which happen to inconvenience you and play the victim in such a situation.

Creating antagonism may fulfill some primal human need for conflict and revenge but we should really be beyond constructing "us vs. them" distinctions instead of focusing on the problem itself. In the aftermath of the finals schedule firestorm, the faculty were disappointed in the sheer hysteria of the situation, especially considering how the problem was not actually that significant. On the other hand, my schedule document resulted in many of the problems actually being resolved.

The best course of action is to take a step back and consider the problem objectively. This is age-old advice, and I am glad to see it implemented here when role models do follow it.

Artistic Failure

[At the time of this writing, I was a senior at University of Illinois Laboratory High School.]

About a year ago, our fair school had a bit of a graphic design change. The classic interlocked "UH" logo was replaced with this... thing:

The Identity Standards page explains the following:

This mark reflects the "Uni" brand and serves as Uni's universal logo to be used on all publications. While the official name of the school is used formally, "Uni" serves as the brand identity. The mark's typeface is Adobe Garamond Pro, the University of Illinois' official typeface.

For comparison, here is the previous logo:

This varsity mark represents Uni's athletic brand. The mark is reserved for use on official apparel, team uniforms, athletic department equipment, and athletic department publications.

This mark does not represent Uni's main brand identity.

There are only two reasons I can think of for why this change was made by the advancement office.

1. So that the nickname "Uni" could be formalized and made more recognized on official media, hence the repeated usage of the term "brand identity."
2. To match official University logos and materials.

By any measure of graphic design, the new logo is a disaster, both artistically and aesthetically. One does not simply make a logo by typing text in a font. If I can open up my word processor and recreate your logo in five seconds, you have failed.

Bad.

As this image shows, the logo has zero creativity. Beyond no effort being put into actually constructing it, it also defies guidelines of what a logo should be. It is neither detailed nor simple, but rather in the uncanny valley of having an intricate font outline but not much more than that. In fact, the design of the font itself works against the logo.

For example, look closely at the top-left corner of the 'n'. Garamond was designed to be used for text at small sizes. The serif pattern of the letters was not designed for viewing at the scales necessary for a logo.

This logo is soulless. It is far too simplistic.

In constructive terms, I doubt there was sufficient rationale to make this change in the first place. The quickest solution would be to revert to the UH immediately. If the logo must contain the name "Uni", even though "Uni High" sounds more down-to-earth, then the students and the Fine Arts department should be tapped for input on designing a logo that adheres to graphic design standards.

This space used to have the UH.

In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy wiping my feet on the mats showcasing this logo when I enter and exit the school building.

Charity

[At the time of this writing, I was a senior at University of Illinois Laboratory High School.]

This Thursday, the recently instituted annual fundraiser Volley for a Cure ("Block Out Cancer") is taking place. We have two such events a year, the other being the more popular Coaches vs. Cancer basketball game. In essence, these events raise money in a handful of different ways, all revolving around a school sports game hyped for weeks in advance. This money is then sent off to a charitable organization. Unfortunately, while the heart of these events is in the right place, their premise in execution fails to be helpful or worthwhile. Much of the money raised is lost to bureaucracy in the target charity, and the attached spirit of public display and competition leads to social side-effects. Of course, there is also the ever-present banner of spreading awareness.

Volley for a Cure donates to the poster child of all charities, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc. (operating as Susan G. Komen for the Cure). The Coaches vs. Cancer beneficiary is the American Cancer Society. You would expect organizations of this size would have a financial overhead for its workers, but the numbers paint a picture far worse.

Just take a look at Form 990, which tax-exempt nonprofit organizations are required by law to submit annually to the IRS. On pages 1, 10, and 11, you can find the numbers necessary to tabulate charities' financial effectiveness. Here are the forms for Susan G. Komen and the American Cancer Society.

Susan G. Komen 2011 Financial Summary
Total Revenue: $208,956,027
Total Expenses: $192,438,599
Net Revenue: $16,517,428
Total Salaries and Benefits Paid: $24,232,513
Total "Travel", "Lobbying", "Business", "Advertising", and "Other" Expenditures: $92,000,784
Grants passed to other organizations: $76,205,302
Percentage of annual revenue with potential to be "charitable": 36%

American Cancer Society 2011 Financial Summary
Total Revenue: $374,019,492
Total Expenses: $373,462,873
Net Revenue: $556,619
Total Salaries and Benefits Paid: $92,142,421
Total "Travel", "Lobbying", "Business", "Advertising", and "Other" Expenditures: $120,791,072
Grants passed to other organizations: $113,106,262
Grants passed to other organizations, including "affiliates": $160,529,380
Percentage of annual revenue with potential to be "charitable": 30% / 43%

Last year, only 36 cents of every dollar received left Susan G. Komen's doors with even the hope of finding some use. The rest is either burned to expenses or paid out to employees. The American Cancer Society's figure is in the same ballpark.

Many institutional charities share the same financial pattern: the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the United Way, and more. (If you want to do more research on your own, look here. Be sure to examine the Form 990 PDFs. If you don't want to register yourself an account using your permanent email address, try this resource.)

The revenue for each of these events was shared via email soon after each one took place.

Coaches vs. Cancer 2010: $2200
Volley for a Cure 2010: $1200
Coaches vs. Cancer 2011: $740
Volley for a Cure 2011: $1459.52
Coaches vs. Cancer 2012: $2438

Especially with ~60% of each figure being taken off to start, these values make little to no impact. Considering the push each game gets, it's not worth it to say "every little bit helps."

Given all the publicity we were bombarded with in the days before each event, the major push to get t-shirts, and the "Cancer Victims Wall" in Kenney Gym, coupled with the fact that these events make such measly amounts, I am led to think these events are more successful in gathering the community together to publicly pat themselves on the back, a la conspicuous consumption. In addition, I have noticed a trend of injecting competition into charitable events in the form of money-wasting like pizza parties and pasta lunches for the most participation of any class. The most egregious example (sponsored by the Swim Team) further split each class by gender, which is a deplorable idea because it creates unnatural antagonism and a sense of separation, as Coach Merf once taught my sports class.

I'll admit that I bought a Coaches vs. Cancer shirt the first time around. I still wear it occasionally, because it is the only bright pink shirt I have, and it goes quite well underneath maroon.

A friend of mine once called me, quote, a "cynical bastard." I am not a friendless soul searching for something popular to complain about. Just last week I received word of another case of cancer in my extended family. Rather than trashing a genuine charitable spirit which is what inspired and drives management of these events, it is my hope that the Uni community can get its priorities straight and put an end to what end up being self-congratulatory wastes of time and money, instead refocusing on something better.

For the past few weeks in Student Council, we have been planning a school-wide blood drive to honor a parent with terminal leukemia. Even though students under 16 cannot donate blood, an event like this with tangible effects is orders of magnitude better than rallying around a sports game and shipping off a chunk of cash to a monolithic organization.

Shipping a few hundred dollars to a charity is a big waste of time. If you do want to contribute to a larger cause, I encourage you to do your research, either digging through the IRS forms, or using a charity calculator like Charity Navigator. The best ways to contribute to any cause are concrete works of charity, such as helping someone you know personally. This way, you make a real positive impact.

[Update.]

Personal Philosophy

In one of those rare precious insights, on my first day of the France/Italy trip this summer I coined the following expression to guide myself from that point on. Note that this is the verbatim language that I came up with.

I will do anything as long as the opportunity is available, risk is mitigated, and circumstances allow.

I have found this statement to hold up since then but for better or worse it requires some explanation and qualification before it is ready for use in the wild.

• the opportunity is available

The first clause is the least defined on its own. I am defining opportunity to refer to any action itself being possible, and the willingness of any people involved to participate or give permission. For example, if I wanted to drive to the library, I would ask a parent if I could use the car and I would have to explain where I am going and when I will be back. In other words, opportunity refers to the who, the what, and the how. This clause also blocks out things that I outright do not want to do (the statement's most inherent literal weakness) regardless of feasibility because I am not present in the who. However, I designed this statement in such a way during the trip so I would have less excuse to shy away from trying new things in a foreign place.

• risk is mitigated

Conversely, this component easily explains itself. I am not going to do anything if it presents considerable danger or possibility of loss unless any adverse factors have been adequately protected against. I have never in my life ridden a bicycle without a helmet, and I usually wear some form of visual protection as well, casually sunglasses, but in the future I might look into some proper eyewear. Likewise, I would not enter a vehicle jam-packed with teenagers. I would probably seek shelter. I do not have a deathwish.

• circumstances allow

This phrase answers for the where and the when. I project a feeling more of outside, unchangeable factors and conditions onto this requirement. In the bike riding example from from item #2, I won't go for the bike ride if it is raining or dark outside. If I don't have the time or a good location to take a nap--well, I'd probably take the nap anyway.

Paraphrased for clarity (and in an exclusive rather than inclusive manner), I will only do something if collectively everyone involved is able and agreeable, if safety is assured or precautions are taken, and if I have the resources and circumstances necessary.

The Writer's Dilemma

The acts of reading and writing essays should be uplifting and enlightening ones--or at the very least, informative. The examples set by previous non-fiction writers drive me to write thoughtfully and calmly, with compellingness. I worry that my untrained writing style will leak through, trapping me in a locked-down state of complaining or accusing and leaving the reader stranded without a sense of progress. Just thinking about this blog brought a number of potential topics to my mind but I must be careful not to rush through the writing process.

In the past year or so (starting around the debt ceiling issue in summer 2011) I have been experiencing a small but ever-growing sense of general misanthropy, especially in regards to politics and public discourse. When I self-evaluate the thoughts I have in reaction, I come across as extremely blunt. I can explain "this sucks and this is why" but most people, myself included, don't like to read a piece that rips something to shreds and walks away.

Even in the act of communication I tend to encounter roadblocks at every turn. Much of my experience draws upon computer science and mathematical principles that I find efficient to draw upon for analogies. Subconsciously I have worked "short-circuit evaluation" among other terms into my own personal philosophy and I have to take care to "dereference" the meanings of these terms in explanations. Many of the subjects I am passionate about involve jargon that causes the same problem. Even in recounting events or explaining history (personal or cultural) I face a problem of infinite recursion in my explanations and in the difficulty of getting the point across as I hit tangent after tangent.

These two issues combined present the core of what I must improve in my writing. Bleak prospects and tangent-laden descriptions demotivate writer and reader alike.