How to make my brain bigger

I took a class in finance via Coursera a few months ago.  Why?  Because I thought that learning something about what my boss knows very well and deals with all the time would help me do my job a little better.  And because learning stuff for free on the internet?  Totes awesome!

My class was taught by Gautam Kaul of the University of Michigan.  Yep, I was an "enrolled" student at the University of Michigan for a semester!  And (ahem) Princeton for my world history class.

Here's the course description:  This course is primarily devoted to the fundamental principles of valuation. We will learn and apply the concepts of time value of money and risk to understand the major determinants of value creation. We will use both theory and real world examples to demonstrate how to value any asset. 

I loved that class.  And worked my butt off.  I found myself repeatedly saying something I do not actually ever remember saying while I going to University of Maryland on my father's dime: I'd really love to, but I can't -- I have homework to do.  I skipped fun stuff to do finance problems sets (and later to write history papers); I chose watching videos of Professor Kaul and his electronic whiteboard over watching sit-coms or reading; and I pounded ideas about present value and future value into my head*.

It was really fun (no, really, it was) and it made my brain a little bigger.  There's still lots of room for brain expansion so I'm going to take some more courses.

Introduction to Finance taught me the following:

1.  The world runs on algebra;****

2.  Finance is algebra with dollar signs;

3.  Finance includes statistics;

4.  Statistics for finance is algebra with dollar signs in Greek.

Oh, and ...

5.  Net present value.

All the rest was commentary.


* To wit:  money now is always better than money later; compounding is the strongest force in the universe after duct tape**; and how to calculate payments versus total cost.***  

**Okay, I actually already knew that one.

***Which means that I will never be at the mercy of a salesman's calculations about what something will cost me.  I can figure it out on my own!!

****As a collateral benefit, I now understand Algebra better than when I was actually taking it in high school.  Sort of the way that taking French greatly improved my knowledge of English grammar.

Out of one, many

Although I've been to New Zealand twice, I didn't go to church while I was there.  The first time wasn't over a weekend (I think) and the second time ... I just didn't.  Which is rather too bad because if I had spent a morning with a congregation of the Anglican Church in Aetearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia* I could have been part of the communal responses in  the liturgy.  However, this past Sunday I got the chance to make up for that.  

This is from our church bulletin:  "The revelation of Jesus as Lord and Savior was first made known to the wise men, but from there, spread to all corners of the word.  To mark this, our liturgy during the season of Epiphany will come from a different corner of the world:  New Zealand. At our 10:30 service, the confession, absolution, Eucharistic prayer and post-communion prayer come from our sister Anglican Church in Aetearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia."  

I've missed church for the past few weeks for one reason or another and I'll be out again this weekend for a family funeral, but I greatly enjoyed the chance to recite the familiar ideas in a  new way.  A kind of foreign exchange.  And I'll be happy to return to the familiar phrasing as well.**

The confession:  Merciful God, we have sinned in what we have thought and said, in the wrong we have done and in the good we have not done. We have sinned in ignorance; we have sinned in weakness; we have sinned through our own deliberate fault.  We are truly sorry.  We repent and turn to you.  Forgive us, for our Savior Christ's sake, and renew our lives to the glory of your name. Amen.

The absolution: Through the cross of Christ, God have mercy on you, pardon and set you free.  Know that you are forgiven and be at peace.  God strengthen you in all goodness and keep you in life eternal.  Amen. 

The Eucharistic prayer:  
God of past and present,
We your people remember your Son.
We thank you for his cross and rising again,
We take courage from his ascension;
We look for his coming in glory
and in him we give ourselves to you.

The post communion prayer: Father of all, we give you thanks and praise, that when we were far off you met us in your Son and brought us home. Dying and living, he declared your love, gave us grace and opened the gate of glory.  May we who share Christ's body live his risen life; we who drink his cup bring life to others; we whom the Spirit lights give light to the world.  Amen.

I'm rather glad that the Lord's Prayer is consistent across the Anglican Communion.  I'd really miss my mondegreen.



*Aetearoa is the most widely known and accepted Māori name for New Zealand.  It is used by both Māori and non-Māori, and is becoming increasingly widespread in the bilingual names of national organisations.  (per Wikipedia) The full title of the collected Anglican churches in New Zealand is "The Anglican Church in Aetearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia." (per the Church)

**After all, "wherever you wander, wherever you roam, be happy, and healthy, and glad to come home."

The Parable of my Talents

I am a woman of a few talents.  I can sing some, so I sang in the choir as a teenager and I'm warm and pleasant and very good at saying "Good morning!" while handing people things and "Thank you!" while accepting their money, so I've been an usher for the past several years.

Knowing of my peculiar obsession with interest in theater, I am sometimes approached to direct the Christmas pageant or some variation on it, but I usually get out of that one because Christmas pageant-type anythings usually have enough people in them to set off my conflict alarm.*

There were a couple of talents of mine that the church had left buried in the ground until recently:  I like to read and I like to talk, so certainly I like to read out loud.  The church name for the person who reads out loud is a "lector."**  So, in addition to ushering, I am now a lector, which makes me very happy.

Here's how it works:  Late in the week Steve, who coordinates the lectors, sends a reminder that one is scheduled to read on the coming Sunday.  The reminder includes what one is scheduled to read, with the first lector reading from the Old Testament and the second lector reading from the New.   Beth, the church secretary sends a preview copy of the bulletin and the "Synthesis," which provides context and commentary on the readings and the gospel.  Speaking as someone whose favorite part of the rehearsal process is tablework, I'm really glad to get those.  Makes the reading much less cold.

On the Sundays when I lector (when I lect?) I start the service seated with the Acolytes behind the choir on the Epistle side.  Before church I check that what I am reading has been flagged at the beginning and end of the reading and that my reading is continuous rather than, say, verses 1-3, 9-15, and 18-22.  The person reading Old Testament lesson goes up to the Large And Very Authoritative Looking Bible on the lectern, which also being rather large and authoritative, nearly completely masks the bible, but that's fine as it also masks the Post-It flags.  Anyway, the Old Testament reader, climbs up on the little step-stool (so as to be seen by the congregation over the Large and Authoritative Lectern), turns on the mic and the light, and says "A reading from ________."

We are asked not to bring our bulletins with us to the lectern because it should be clear that we are reading directly from the Bible.***

For some reason most things that have to do with theater do not make me nervous but microphones do.  Maybe it's because I can hear myself talking or maybe it's because everyone should have some odd thing that makes one nervous, but reading a long paragraph in church with the words in front of me to an audience that is mostly paying attention makes me more nervous than anything else I do "on stage."  I think if I'd been told to project to the back of the house and there was no mic I wouldn't be as nervous, but not's not the deal.

And because I am an actor I try to balance how I read.  I want to treat it like a cold reading at an audition and really embody the characters.  But this is not about me. So I don't.  On the other hand, people pay more attention if one doesn't, uhm, drone.

So I do add a little color to my voice here and there and I slightly set of quotes from narrative.  Today, for instance, I read the story of the conception of Samuel (1 Samuel 1:4-20, for those following along at home) and -- to make this a visual -- you can could say that I read it thus:

Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat.  Her husband Elkanah said to her, "Hannah, why do you weep?  Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad?  Am I not more to you than ten sons?" After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose and presented herself before the Lord.

Rather than, say,

Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat.  Her husband Elkanah said to her, 

"Hannah, why do you weep?  Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad?  Am I not more to you than ten sons?" 

After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose and presented herself before the Lord. 

At the end of the reading, the button is "The Word of the Lord" to which the congregation responds "Thanks be to G-d." ****

After the Old Testament reader is finished, he or she (sometimes) turns off the light and (sometimes) turns the pages to the Epistle reading for the convenience of the Epistle reader.  And then one is free to return to one's seat in the congregation "with the satisfying feeling that one's duty has been done."*****

One day the church will figure out how to benefit from another of my talents:  my multi-gallon per day capacity for a nice, hot cups of tea.


*As the number of people in a cast grows, the likely number of times you'll have the entire cast together diminishes.  So I try never to direct anything with a cast larger than eight.

** The name for the kind of reading out loud that David does is called "being a volunteer."  He reads textbooks and such out loud for an organization that provides spoken versions of written material to the blind and others with reading challenges.  They are called Learning Ally and would happily accept a donation.

*** It is clear that most of the congregation is following along in their bulletins because of the page-turning noise that happens at some point in one of the day's readings.

**** One time I got up there and halfway through the reading, I suddenly couldn't remember the button, even though I have heard it and responded to it for decades and have said it as a lector several times.  But I am actor and so I told myself silently -- as I was reading out loud -- what I tell myself on stage when I start to worry about a line from another scene:  "Do not worry about that line.  Say your next line.  When it is time for that line, it will come to you."  And it did.

***** W.S. Gilbert, The Gondoliers.  Of course.

It really comes in handy

I was at the quarterly meeting of my investment club today and our hostess is Orthodox Jewish.  The topic of carrying during the Sabbath ("what about your children?  Can you carry them?") came up and so my friend was explaining that some Jewish communities create what she described as a sort of fence to enclose, say a neighborhood, and make carrying acceptable within that space.

"Oh," I said, "an eruv?"

My friend's jaw dropped and she said "You know that?!"

Her equally stunned husband said "How do you know that?"

"Public radio." 

"Huh," said the husband, "maybe they shouldn't be defunded."

Lucky Wil, Lucky Leta

Wil Wheaton captures pretty much exactly how I feel when I get to work on a good show which happens to me more often than is truly fair.  

I would get out of my car and nearly run in the door for rehearsals for August: Osage County this past spring and I am counting down the hours minutes until I can get back in "the room" for Farragut North.

"And I know I keep saying it, but I’ll say it again: this is awesome. I get to work with people I love making a show that I’m proud of ..."

A sign

... that perhaps I've been spending too much time in pubs with my theater pals:  I got an email and the screen name was Bill W.

My new role model

Herman Cain is largely incoherent and self-aggrandizing which makes him to great fun to read.  Okay, to very rarely read.  Like this one interview, which is all I've seen in a while.  For which I am grateful.

But anyway ...

Have you and Romney had contact since you suspended your campaign?We have chatted about, No. 1, what my interests are going forward [in terms of being part of his Administration]. And I said, “Governor Romney, with all due respect, I’m not lookin’ for a job. I don’t want to be your VP pick, and I don’t want to be a Cabinet member. Because I’ve got other things in my career that I’m interested in doing.”

Did he ask you about those posts in particular?No. I just volunteered that information. I don’t know what he was thinking … No 2., I gave him some advice on sharpening his message. And he has taken a lot of that advice. Last week he rolled out his energy policy. I loved it. It was a five-point plan. And he even said to me, “Notice, I’m starting to use a number-point plan.”

I love that Mr. Cain "answered" a question he hadn't been asked and then used that answer to self-promote. This is definitely something to try in the future and I suppose the answers have to be addressed to people to whom one could plausibly have spoken.

F'rinstance:

No:

"And I said, 'Johnny Depp, although I am very flattered, I'm not running off to Geneva, Switzerland with you.  I have other things in my life that I'm interested in doing.' "

Yes:

"And I said, '[name of director I like working with], although it is very tempting, I cannot let you give me first refusal on the best roles in all your future shows.  My calendar is pretty crowded as it is and we should allow others to think that they have a chance."

Note that the idea doesn't have to be plausible, just the supposed offerer.  

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/27/qa-herman-cain-isnt-looking-for-a-job-from-romney-but-he-has-a-few-pointers/#ixzz24lUnvjTl