skysenshi.com

Toast of Mensa was designed to help geeks and nerds. Why? Because, as Tommy would put it, geeks and nerds are bad communicators. We have this tendency to think so highly of ourselves that we find it impressive when other people can’t understand a word we’re saying. It’s not. (In fairness to some geeks/nerds, I know mathematicians like my dad just can’t seem to translate numeric processes into the kind of words that non-mathematicians would comprehend. Heck, even I don’t understand how he uses the abacus to compute larger denominations.)

When you’re in the academe, it’s your utmost duty to make sure that your students are LEARNING. That means, if you want your non-IT students to truly digest OODBMS concepts, you don’t use Java to teach it. You don’t go straight into differentials and integrals when they haven’t absorbed that for every X there is a delta X. You don’t make them apply pythagorean theorems when you haven’t explained to them what c² = a² + b² means. It frustrates me to no end to see other professors get away with this when I spend hours and hours and hours simplifying algorithmic concepts. My students need to learn what I’m teaching. If they hated my subject, how would they even include it in the greater scheme of things? They might as well throw it away and ask for a tuition refund.

I know I probably haven’t perfected this craft. Which brings me to Toast of Mensa. I learn from other people who are tons geekier than I am. They’re so good in their craft it makes me weep. Every feedback is precious. Anything that brings me closer to becoming a competent communicator I embrace wholeheartedly. These are smart people who want to get off high horses so that they could serve other people better. I like being evaluated and I find it an honor to be evaluated by such people.

I just wish there was a way I could record them and produce podcasts of their speeches. Alas, right now I’m stuck to taking down gems such as, “Boredom is a state of mind,” (Jay) and, “You cannot steer a Toastmaster if he isn’t moving.” (Tommy) I could’ve been replaying them, along with the emotions they put into those words of wisdom.

iPod. Looks like you’re next in my list of purchases.
(And yeah…I’m preparing for my 2nd speech now.)

acid42 wrote on Nov 14, ’06 MabuHEY!

skysenshi wrote on Nov 15, ’06 obviously bitter pa rin ako sa nakuha kong 3.0. hehe.

acid42 wrote on Nov 15, ’06 over-achiever!

tellmeskandar wrote on Nov 16, ’06 A good dose of EQ will help a lot. ko din got a 3.0

skysenshi wrote on Nov 16, ’06, edited on Nov 16, ’06 tellmeskandar said A good dose of EQ will help a lot. ko din got a 3.0 Yeah. So far, I’ve managed to use EQ to get through the other subjects. But this particular subject ruined my record. My EQ dropped to about a single digit number and I completely floundered. Sana pala di na lang ako pumasok and just submitted a bunch of copy-pasted stuff. Haha! @Sir Lionel Hello, pot! I’m kettle. Hehe.