fighting fear

I think as humans we often tend to fear, and particularly fear the unknown. The future, the difficult, the unexpected and the unpreventable are all victims of our worry--and our fear. Anxiety can be good--if it motivates us to be better; however, often fear and self-doubt can lead to inaction, passively fighting against change. When this passive fight against change prevents necessary life progress from being made this seems to become somewhat counter intuitive, although sometimes I find myself falling into these traps as well. Shouldn't we be fearing more the consequences of our inaction than the consequences of our actions? Isn't the prospect of never getting a job worse than the thought of being rejected from various positions? Isn't the thought of just having to live without knowing enough to act as motivation? "It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed" (Theodore Roosevelt).

To me it's really amazing how much college changes things--I continually am presented with opportunities which I never imagined I'd be confronted with, let alone able to embrace. Most recently was my decision to travel to Nepal this summer for two weeks. A five day trek through the Himalayas. Sight-seeing in a foreign country--without my family. Over three days of flight time. I never would have imagined this, even just a month ago. But yet it's going to happen.

This is the view from Pool Hill (which I will be climbing this
summer) of some Himalayan peaks.

Am I scared? Of course. I hardly feel like I'm prepared in the most basic aspects, such as having a good backpack for trekking or broken in shoes, or being able to cover difficult terrain over extended periods of time, let alone feeling prepared for some of the tougher aspects. Dealing with a completely foreign culture, their people, and their language, and figuring out issues such as money, cold showers, etc. Handling international travel on my own and adjusting to time differences as well as altitude differences. Being without much modern technology which allows me to get in contact regularly with those I care about. Does it scare me? Yes, yes it does, but I can't--and I won't--let my fear talk me out of this great opportunity.

I have never been a procrastinator, and I won't put off foreign travel right now just because maybe I'm young, or maybe I should earn a little bit more money. To me it all comes down to the fact that I have no idea if I will ever be able to go to Nepal again. I might never have a chance to come across the great majesty of the Himalayas again. So I will put aside my fear and embrace the moment.

Quite simply, I am going to go.

a belated pi day post

Maybe it's because I'm a complete nerd or maybe because math is wonderful and has the capacity to be oh so very interesting, but I'm a fan of Vi Hart and her videos. If I had a guarantee that math would be as cool as she makes it seems in her videos all of the time, I would become a math major right now. But alas. It's not so. But Vi Hart has convinced me that tau is indeed better than pi. You're probably wondering what tau is. It's okay. I too once was ignorant of the wonders of tau. 

And if tau is not good enough for you, maybe wau will be. 

If she can't make you love math, I honestly don't know who can. Anyway, here is a picture of the rebellious tau cookies I made last pi day. Ironically I don't think I even remembered tau day when it came around. (Although I believe I was in France so I guess I can use that as some sort of an excuse...).

That's right. I'm going against you pi.

Despite the fact that tau is by far superior to pi, I'm still a fan of anything that allows me to embrace the nerdy. So of course I bought a pi day t-shirt. With the money I won from a bet with my math TA. Yes, I know betting is not the best. But he was insisting that no set of vectors could span if they were linearly dependent! I mean, it's obvious, really.

Just kidding pi. You're the (second) best.

Anyway, happy late pi day!