Honing The Talent
B Pascal
Chapter 5
The First Week
I was slightly disoriented when I stepped out into the quad, but soon got my bearings and found my way back to my dorm. Larry was not yet back, but I was too tired to talk to him anyway, so I shucked my clothes, crawled into bed, and was unconscious in moments.
I didn’t hear Larry come in, but he was snoring in his bed when I woke. I felt pretty good, considering how hard I’d worked last night, so I got up, brushed my teeth and went off to find breakfast.
Not much happened over the next two days. I’m sure there were lots of parties, but I abstained.
Instead I got a head start on the textbooks, particularly the psychology and history texts. Those and the English would require the most reading. By the time Monday morning rolled around, I felt like I’d gotten a good handle on the course content.
Heading out for my first class, I thought that this was the first time I’d felt like I was actually starting college. It wasn’t the parties, the drinking, the hanging out in the cafeteria, it was going to my first class which, as it turned out, was Survey of English Literature. I found the building and the lecture hall, as did a hundred other people, found a seat toward the front and settled in.
This was one of those required courses meant to give you an understanding of the historical influences on modern man, one of the icons of “liberal arts” that purported to make us educated.
Because you never know when you might be called on in a business meeting to offer your perspective on the Anglo-Saxon influences on modern literary thought.
Sorry, I’m being sarcastic. It couldn’t hurt to know something about this stuff, but I didn’t really have much interest in it and didn’t see how it would help me, much as I didn’t really see the purpose of being forced to study geography in high school. It was a core requirement, that’s the only reason I was here. A survey of literature and poetry in Europe from about the 7th to the 16th century.
The professor appeared from a side door, went to the lectern, reviewed some housekeeping notes and how grades would be determined, then jumped into it. And I was surprised.
I thought, this is the difference between good teaching and indifferent teaching. A good teacher makes an effort to make the material relevant, interesting, as this one did. And I mentally slapped myself upside the head for making assumptions. I had read ahead in the text, so I understood much of what he was talking about.
I noticed right away that the level of detail, of nuance, in the ideas presented was far above the hardest class I’d had in high school. Everyone ahead of me in school that I’d talked to after they’d gone off to college had said the same thing. But this seemed a step further somehow, perhaps the difference between an average four-year school and, well, this place, one of the Ivies.
This was not just an instructor giving a summary of ideas to a group of students. This was more like a teacher indoctrinating a group of future colleagues. We were being given a set of complex ideas and were expected not just to remember names, dates, and general plot points, but rather to absorb all the details, place them in context, and use that framework to extrapolate new meaning.
I suspected this would come up on exams.
Because I hadn’t had the chance to do it yet, I waited till his attention was turned in my direction and I was able to pick up the link to his epicenter, and peeked in. In high school I found that this allowed me to understand the context of what the instructor was attempting to explain, what its importance was in the larger scheme of things, and in certain cases, like math, to grasp the underlying concepts.
I had been afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do it as I had in high school, that it would fail when the material became harder, more abstruse. But I found that it worked pretty much as it had then, and I saw how this topic—he was starting with Beowulf—fit into later English literature, though he hadn’t yet discussed it. I saw his understanding of the topic and its context. And having seen it, I remembered it as if I had learned it by dint of hard work and memorization! That’s what made me such a good student in high school, this ability to fit knowledge into a framework and see how it worked.
This is what I loved about my accidental talent, the ability to see how it worked as part of a larger whole. Scholars literally spent years, decades, before they got to the point where they were able to contextualize everything they had learned and to understand new things as part of a greater whole. This gave me a huge step up in the learning process.
I could not, as I said earlier, peek in to a teacher’s epicenter, and copy everything he or she knew, only the parts that they were actively thinking or speaking about. But I saw and could understand the framework in which this data existed, and when I learned new information from them I would be able to insert it into its proper place in the matrix.
It helped a lot that the teacher was making an effort to keep the material interesting, because if he started to drone—I was thinking of Mr. Grimes’ Geography class in high school—I would lose interest, my mind would wander, and I would miss important stuff.
So almost before I knew it class was over. He left us a reading assignment for next time, but I’d already read that far anyway. And I found that I was remembering pretty much everything he’d discussed in class. I’d review my notes, of course, but I thought I had this.
This came as a relief, knowing that I could absorb this material by piggybacking on the instructor’s understanding. It made school a whole lot easier and the truth was that I got a lot more out of this by perceiving the larger picture, the context in which the material was to be understood.
I had almost two hours before my next class, Psych I, so I went to the cafeteria and got a sandwich. It was perhaps a little early for lunch, but after the next class it would be late and I would be hungry, so food now. I read while I ate.
Eventually I headed off to the Psych class, this time in a different building. This class was aimed at people majoring in psychology or one of the other behavioral sciences. I looked for a seat closer to the front so I could hear better and also to get closer to the “link”. And this class, too, I was glad to find had an instructor who tried to make the material interesting rather than just reading from the text. So far I was batting two for two.
I’d developed an interest in psychology after encountering some people with really pathological behavioral traits in high school, as well as some folks with unusual sexual proclivities, and I had wondered how they had wound up that way. That led to a more general interest in what motivates people and causes them to behave in certain ways. I wasn’t yet certain if this is what I wanted to do with my life, but it was interesting so I’d give it some time.
Here, too, the level of detail we were being offered was far ahead of the Introduction To Psychology class I’d taken at a local junior college while I was in high school. Yet the instructor managed to hold my attention for the full ninety minutes, and I left with some questions about psychology percolating in my brain. I’d read the text a little more and see if I found any answers.
I had one more class this afternoon, Real Analysis, that was slightly more advanced, perhaps on a second-semester sophomore or junior level, but I’d already done multi-variable calculus in high school, as well as ordinary differential equations, so I had the prerequisites. I’d always been fairly comfortable with math, but this was math on a higher level so I wouldn’t skimp on the work.
You should get used to the idea that I’m going to jump ahead periodically, skipping over things which don’t advance the narrative and explain how I further understood and developed these talents I possessed. This won’t be a diary, a day-by-day recital of events. So you don’t really need to hear about math class. But again I was fortunate to have someone who really understood and liked the subject, and wanted us to as well. It rubs off on the students, it really does.
So back in the dorm I dropped my books and flopped on the bed, thinking. I was feeling pretty good about the classes so far, and being able to understand the subjects and share the lecturer’s insight into the material via this virtual peeking into their epicenters. It made everything a lot more fun.
The door opened and Larry came in looking disconsolate. “Uh-oh,” I said. “You’ve accidentally stabbed the Dean?”
“I could probably get a lawyer to plead that one down. No, a lawyer won’t help with the calculus. I grokked nothing.”
“I told you, it’s not that hard, I’ll show you.”
“That’s like hearing the dentist say, ’This won’t hurt at all’. I don’t believe them, either.”
“Take a few minutes, relax, maybe close your eyes, and we’ll review it. It’ll be fine.”
He looked at me and shook his head, but lay down and stared at the ceiling until he closed his eyes. I read some more.
After twenty minutes or so, he sat up and stretched. “I’m gonna get a soda. You want?” I didn’t.
When he came back he stared at the calculus book on his desk. “Bring it here,” I said, “and your notes, too.”
He handed them to me as if they were something unclean. I skimmed the notes for the first lecture to get a sense of what was covered, which was a general definition of functions. They had just started to touch on the idea of function limits.
I sat him down with a sheet of paper and a pencil and we started with the simple function for a straight line, , for and I made him show me the domain (the possible values of x), and the range (the calculated values of ). Then I made him graph it for the integers in the domain.
Then I wrote down , and again made him identify the domain and the range of the function. I made him graph that, too, on a sheet of graph paper. We did a few more of those with split domains for piece-wise defined functions.
Since they hadn’t done anything significant with limits yet, I didn’t spend much time on them.
I asked if he’d been assigned homework, and he nodded. “Okay, give the problems a try, and anything you don’t understand we’ll go over.”
“Okay. Thanks, Carter, I feel a little better about this.”
And so the week went. Tuesday I had European History—lots of dates, lots of people hating other people, remember who hated who and when and what happened as a result—and then Chemistry I. I’d never taken chemistry in high school, I’d taken biology, so this was new. The first class was pretty fundamental, matter and its properties, states of matter, etc. There was a lab following the class in which we did some simple measurements. It would get harder later on, but so far so good.
And so my pattern for the semester was set. As long as I kept up with the reading and the exercises, some occasional research papers, I should be okay. I was relieved. I was aware that my relaxed state was only due to my ability to piggyback on the instructor’s understanding, but it wasn’t really germane. As long as I gained (and retained) the understanding of the subject, the mechanism was irrelevant.
Tuesday after dinner was Math Club. They preferred ’Math Students’ League’, but it was Math Club. For the first meeting, they had one of the math profs come in and talk about nonlinear equations and how they could be solved (not easily, it turns out, except numerically). Interesting but not useful. To me, anyway.
Wednesday was a repeat of Monday, English, math and psych, with a recitation section for Chem I in the morning led by a teaching assistant (TA), where we reviewed the labs and problem sets. However, in the late afternoon was the first meeting of the martial arts club. I hadn’t been sure if there was going to be one when I got admitted, but had packed my do-bok (Korean name for the martial arts uniform) and belt anyway. It was in one end of the gymnasium; the other end was hosting a basketball game.
There was a mixture of uniforms and a few people who wore just a tee shirt and sweatpants.
Eventually someone in charge called it to order and welcomed the new members. He asked everyone to introduce themselves, say which art they favored and how long they’d been practicing. It was a pretty eclectic mixture of styles—Japanese karate (two kinds), muay-thai, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, taekwon-do, Aikido, one woman who did Wing Chun kung fu, even a guy who did savate.
I guess they’d done this for long enough that they’d worked out how to mix the styles. They’d choose a general topic like blocking or grappling, then go through the group to demonstrate how it differed from one to another. I hadn’t really thought about it before, since we’d had the one “right”
way drilled into us, but there’s more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes, and I saw some new variants there and one completely new technique.
It was a worthwhile expenditure of time, and I’d come back. And nice to do something that wasn’t academic, too, as a break from routine.
Thursday was a repeat of Monday’s schedule, and I had psych club for the first time. It was just a few minutes after the chem lab ended, so I had to hurry across campus and spend a couple of minutes looking for the building and the room. Today’s discussion was led by one of the faculty members, about graduate work in psychology, the general areas of specialization, and career prospects. Okay, perhaps a little early in the process for me, but good to know.
And with that I was done with my class week. It took a moment for me to absorb that. My schedule had worked out that I only had four days of classes. My Fridays were open. It was unlikely to happen like that often, but now I’d have to plan out how I was going to spend my free time. I could see myself falling into a pattern of indolence on Fridays, lasting into the weekend, but part of me thought it a lost opportunity. I’d have assignments to be completed, of course, but I thought I would have enough time on the other days to finish that.
After some thought, I realized that all that time in high school when I was trying to understand my new skills, or to figure out some puzzling psychological quirk I’d encountered, I was unable to because the research materials available to me in my high school library or the local public library were inadequate.
Here I was at one of the major research universities in the country. All that stuff was now at my fingertips, I just had to look for it!
So on Friday, after breakfast, I headed over to the campus library with some notebooks in my backpack and began examining the resources. It was really overwhelming, so I had to sit down and try to identify the major ideas I was trying to understand, and look up who’d written about it.
I thought I needed to know more about memory and how memories are stored and organized.
Oh, and I wanted to understand how the mind controls the sensory organs and processes sensations, in the hypnotist’s sense that I mentioned before, turning one sensation into another. I wasn’t sure what I’d find here, but general discussions about “ESP” and interaction of minds, too.
In a more general area of psychology, I wanted to understand more about how motivations are formed (and more specifically, how they’re malformed), what are the common pathologies, and how are they classified and organized.
I also wanted to know more about how sensations are transmitted and processed in the body and in the brain, which is probably more biology than psychology, but this was a long-term project.
There was a lot on my list, and it would require some refinement as I learned more, but it was a place to start. I decided to begin with the stuff that was most written about, abnormal psychology and pathology. I dug out some interesting looking books and started reading. Periodically, I’d jot down some notes and ideas in my notebook.
When I looked up again, it was after two and I realized I was really hungry, so I reluctantly put the books back on the shelves. I kept the one I’d been reading, checked it out, and went to the cafeteria for a sandwich.
I got tuna salad and a soda, just enough to tide me over till dinner. I read while I ate. It was actually kind of quiet in here between meals, with few people sitting. I expected that would remain true till the weather got worse.
When I couldn’t justify keeping my empty plate company any longer, I cleared my table and walked back to the dorm. Larry must be in class and, for once, it was quiet in the dorm, too. I lay down and napped a little. Apparently psychology wears out the brain.
Larry woke me when he came in, shouting something down the hall to someone else. “Oops, sorry, man, didn’t know you were sleeping.”
“S’okay,” I said, “I was getting up anyway. Were you in a class?”
“Lab, actually, biology lab. Some cute girls there. I’m liking education.”
“Good for you.”
“I tried some of those calc problems I’m supposed to do. I think I understand them. Maybe you could look at them sometime this weekend, check my work?”
“Sure. What time is it, Larry?”
“About five.”
“Right. Don’t know why I’m so tired. Maybe dinner will help.”
“Gotta keep your strength up for parties.”
“Geez, Larry, how do you do it? You’re a party machine.”
“I feel like I have a responsibility here. There must be a family tradition to uphold. If there isn’t, I’m going to have to create one.”
“I’m gonna have to start taking vitamins or something, if I’m going to keep up with you.”
“Let’s start with food. I’m hungry.”
So off we went in search of dinner. Apparently everyone else had had the same idea, and it was crowded. But we got food, and Larry found a couple of places at a table occupied by some people he had classes with. I was introduced and the three of them set off on a girl cataloging exercise, looking around the cavernous room while they ate, offering a running commentary.
It was ”déjà vu all over again”, to quote the great philosopher Yogi Berra, a flashback to high school lunches. They cataloged hair, legs, tits and asses, to decide who was the best looking. They never touched on things like presence, confidence, intelligence or any of the other intangibles. I know enlightenment is a process, but it seemed to be taking some guys a really long time.
They were getting really involved with the exercise, so I took my leave and headed back to the dorm. I realized it had been over a week since I’d been dropped off by my parents, and immediately started feeling guilty, so I found an empty pay phone and called home. Collect, since I didn’t have enough change.
It was Mindy who answered. What a surprise! The phone rang, she just assumed it was for her, some friend with the latest gossip. She sounded a little disappointed when she found it was me, but I dutifully asked how school was going, what she was up to. Since I had no gossip, she quickly called my mother to the phone.
She, at least, sounded pleased to hear from me. And she sounded interested in what I’d been doing. Was it difficult? Was I getting enough sleep? Was the food okay? And so on. After a few minutes, she called my dad and we spoke briefly. All in all, they were happy to hear from me.
And I discovered that I was actually a bit homesick, too. I was in a strange place with new people, nothing was familiar. I’d get used to it, but for now I was homesick.
In the background I heard my mother call, “Don’t hang up, I forgot to tell him something!” So when my dad was done, he handed the phone back to her. She was a little breathless when she got on. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. You would have been mad if I had forgotten. Karen sent her new mailing address at college, she wanted me to pass it on to you. Do you have something to write on?”
I found a discarded scrap of paper on the floor and held it against the wall. “Okay, ready. What is it?”
She recited it, and as she did I immediately felt less homesick. I repeated it back to her to make sure, but I’d gotten it. I told her I’d call again, and that I missed them. She told me to call anytime.
Collect.
I hung up, and clutched the scrap of paper like it was a winning lottery ticket all the way back to the room. I stared at it for a while, then went and sat down at my desk and started writing. I must have written ten pages of close script, everything I’d done, what the classes were like, about Larry and his manservant, about the clubs. And my mailing address.
I decided I should send this one, and then start another, so I put it in an envelope, stamped it, then added another stamp in case one wasn’t enough, then walked it down to the campus post office and dropped it through the slot. I knew it would take days to get there, then days for her reply, but it was all I could do for now. I’d write her another tomorrow. Feeling sorry for myself, I went to bed.