 |
| Special relativity explained with stick figures. Also known as Giuliani law. |
Leadership weekend wrap up!
Don’t you love it? That’s what they call us: leaders.
(latin for: “those who have coughed up")
MMB and I are now infamous as those two blondes with the huge family of people who have been kicked out. People come up to us and say we made their day with our stand up act.
Another woman who looked very tightly wound, tapped me on the shoulder to tell me she had been to my house. Her second comment was that my husband was “the most laid back parent about college she had ever met". She also told me that her son, who has graduated, told her if he had known what first semester of senior year would be like, he would not have come to the school. It seems he has a sort of Frederick-put me in with the lions ethos, and that can be a bit like taking a dare on a Carolina Reaper pepper. Sounds good before you eat it. F looks different. In past years, he was a little nervous, but now he is facing something much bigger. The famous Mr. Fung for example took 12 points out of 15 off on one question -even though he had the right answer... apparently Frederick didn’t do it the way he taught them in class.
Frederick was laughing when we told me though- he likes an honest black eye.
At dinner, he tried to explain what he is learning in physics: "it's just not logical mommy." He says he understands it so far, but is clearly worried it is going to get weird soon. Then he got a little jolly on an organic cola and said he could explain if we gave him a piece of paper. This is all I heard: if one person is going the speed of light, and an observer is not, there will be, in essence, two versions of reality. And because I am now and forever tainted by political Podcasts, all I heard was this sentence booming in my head: “Rudy Giuliani was right!! Truth isn’t truth!!!!!
Frederick thought about that and said yes that was perhaps true.
We talked about intelligent life and how we are trying to make contact. He said he is trying as we speak, via his computer.
The trouble is, the first thing the aliens will hear of humans is Hitler on TV (he was the first to televise things) and they might be put off by a tiny, tightly wound German ranting about something called “Jews". You can just see them asking themselves: what the alien fuck is up with this people?
I asked him who else was taking the class, and he said mostly Asian kids that one doesn’t see on the lacrosse field; but there are also a few intrepid souls who don’t understand anything about physics, but have large, curious cojones. And honestly aren't these the people we admire most? How I wish I had been like this in high school- a little more embracing of abject failure. It's not that I didn't fail of course- it's just that it was foisted upon me. And one should never wait for foisting.
 |
| The 1562 Grant avenue team in happier times (pre Kavanaugh). |
