Random Raves 54: You will succeed. It is inevitable.

[Birdjaguar]

Those were the days!

Singer Bowl​

Dear Diary:

My friend Billy and I went to Flushing Meadow Park on a hot summer day in 1968. I was not quite 16. We had heard that the Chambers Brothers would be performing a concert at the Singer Bowl.
Having no tickets, we approached a security guard at one of the doors and asked if we could get in.

“Two dollars each,” he said.
We handed him the money, and he told us to just go up to the front near the stage and stand at the railing.

We got to see Janis Joplin perform a set and drink a bottle of Southern Comfort and Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire.

The Chambers Brothers were great too.

— David Kaplow

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[Spidernova]

I got given an entry level alverez guitar for folk music purposes and I'm raiding the Guthrie and Seeger catalog for beginner songs.
I've got John Brown's Body learned, and this is more dopamine than I've felt in / years/, it seems like.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Familiar Face​

Dear Diary:

My son, James, and I walked into Milady’s on Prince Street in May 1988. We sat down at a two-top and ordered chicken sandwiches and a couple of beers.
My back was to the door, so my view was all interior, with a pool table and jukebox in my sight line. A very familiar figure was chalking a cue.
I had seen him before, but only in huge arenas where I had to watch him on screens because I was so far from the stage. Once, I won two front-row seats in a radio call-in contest to see him at Kiva Auditorium in Albuquerque when he was doing an acoustic tour.

He was a musical beacon who guided me through tough years of single motherhood, the reason I spent money on concerts I couldn’t afford in Denver and Oakland.
I bit at my sandwich slowly, surprised I could eat at all. When we had finished the food and downed our beers, we ordered another round.

James had chalked our names on the board, and when it was our turn, we picked up our bottles and walked toward the pool table. (He walked; I felt like I was floating.)
We shot a game of pool, and we all played poorly, even him. We laughed at our ineptitude, and he gave me a sort of shy hug at the end.

Other names were called, and we sat back down. A loud guy came in with his kid and put money in the jukebox, and “Jungleland” came on.

— Marla West

 

[dusters]

Imposter syndrome as a math teacher, an apology

As a foreword I want to say that this is almost entirely an ego issue. Also it concerns faith.

I'm from a post-USSR country named Latvia. My grandad was a high school math teacher, he taught from 1945 to 1995.

My mom started to study in a program for math teachers as well, but quit and become a musicologist. She finished advanced math/physics classes in her state gymnasium and had a scientist's mindset her whole life.

I was born in 1987, quickly became obsessed with math and did a lot of math problems in kindergarten. Up to age of 16 I was keen to study in a math related BA, I also did a lot of coding in Basic and other languages in 1990s.

At 16, when I had some grasp on C++ and Calculus 3, I quit cold turkey to focus on the right hemisphere of the brain. I tried to write poetry, but prose was easier for me and I have been writing ever since.

The main factor was that my parents believed me to be a prodigy, they sent me to a coding school when I was 11, and I got some good results among kids older than me. They had pre-planned my life as a programmer. I had coded from age 9 to 16 so much that my spine was getting weak, eyesight got worse etc.

So I rebelled and said I'm gonna read English literature, draw, sing, do sports and become less of a geek.

I studied to become an English/Latvian teacher for high school children, that was my first BA. Second BA was a classical philology BA to learn how to translate and learn Western/Europe history, because classical period means Greek/Latin myths, traditions etc.

However in year 2014 I realized that people in my country, both kids and their parents, don't care much about analyzing literature at a high level, they want basic grammar and that's it. I was doing poorly financially and started giving private math lessons.

Beginning was tough - I taught math to blind kids, kids with a criminal record, autistic kids, literally kids other teachers didn't want to bother with.

On the other hand parents praised me for putting in a lot of thought and care. I already had a pedagogy degree so it wasn't hopeless, but each case was individual.

In 2015 I was fed up with education system in Latvia (kids weren't required to read full books in secondary and high school anymore, just snippets) and feedback from parents was overwhelmingly positive about my math teaching so I enrolled into third BA, this time for math teachers.

From 2015 to 2024 I studied both math and classical philology. However, I don't have a PhD in math yet.

In 2021 I worked as a teacher for 7th and 8th grade teaching all three subjects - Latvian, English and Math. I taught bilingually and that was the hardest part. Switching back and forth from Russian to Latvian many times during lessons.

In early 2025 I interviewed most of my math professors in University of Latvia about state of math education in the country. They didn't want to say anything publicly, but privately they said that quality of teaching, state wide curriculum, rigor and Latvia born pupil placements in international math olympiads have been going down in the past 20 years.

I'm currently doing research on why this has happened.

For me as a math teacher this bleak feeling has persisted through the years 2014 - 2024, because the Latvian equivalent of SAT has gotten easier and easier over the years. I work with both ends of the spectrum - gifted kids and kids who struggle a lot to get the minimum grade to pass.

So right now my own motivation is to work with kids who are sure they want science in their life. They are, for the most part, from six state gymnasiums in the capital city and some other good schools outside the capital.

Why I feel like an imposter - even if I spent my childhood, age 4 to 16, doing lots of math, after 16 I never looked back until this year. I didn't read math related books, I didn't visit this subreddit, I still hoped to make a living writing books, teaching English and translating.

I tried teaching in an average school and I was miserable - many kids didn't have the interest for math, homework was done reluctantly (I did like 3-4+ hours a week of homework in 1990s), they didn't ask WHY questions.

I understand that math isn't philosophy, but I love history of math and if nobody cares about when/why/who (invented a formula or proof), just asks for a formula and is willing to do "cook book" math, it is close to/approaching "brain rot math" in my opinion.

To know history of math, some philosophy of math, different teaching methods (I mean those from Asia mostly) and at the same time be very efficient as a mathematician, in my head I need a PhD in math and probably Masters in pedagogy.

However, we have some teachers from widely regarded best math oriented school in the country (Riga State Gymnasium No. 1) and even they don't have such education. They usually have BA in pedagogy and Masters in math.

So maybe I'm a perfectionist.

My main issue is that I don't feel passion for (non-advanced) high school math. If kids are bored, if I'm unenthusiastic, I can't see why I would make a good math teacher.

I didn't feel like teaching undergrads in Uni would be much better. I love motivated young people. People who have managed to get in the best schools of the country are, for the most part, more motivated than some random math undergrad. That was my impression when I studied math myself at Uni.

I have some hype for Calculus, number theory, topology, but my main fields of interest academically are philosophy of mathematics and history of math education.

My therapist told me that I should work as a math teacher, it is in my genes. I have done 12 years of private teaching and 1 year of teaching at a school and I don't have any faith in myself for teaching groups of unmotivated kids. She told me that I'm a mathematician, because I have mathematician-like way of thinking. I replied that I have done zero research in pure math (math education and history of math doesn't count in my book), I don't have a PhD, tenure or published papers and I told her that she shouldn't discredit real mathematicians who are postdocs working in academia or industry.



When you studied, were your classmates curious? Can I expect Gen Alpha to be less interested in philosophy in general?

Is it misconception among my profs in university that Gen Z reads less scientific books than millenials?

I'm not sure if anyone here believes in a Math deity, but just in case something like that exists, I apologize that my teenage angst phase made me go astray from the path. (Half-serious joke)

 

[Birdjaguar]

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta begins Friday! It is the biggest hot air balloon in the world.

Home - Balloon Fiesta

www.balloonfiesta.com

 

[dusters]

I'm actually seriously taking up table tennis and trying to climb the national ranking after doing the same with national darts ranking.
Been training for 2-3 months, attending all tournaments I can.

Has anyone of you CFCer's played table tennis at a competitive level? How did it go?

 

[really]

I saw some old family photos this evening and I as a six year old was making the same not impressed face at the camera that my son does now. The funniest part is that my father is making the same face so I know where it comes from.

 

[Gori the Grey]

It's cool enough here that some neighbor has their wood stove fired up. I love the smell of burning firewood.

 

[Joij21]

I just recently finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion as well as End of Evangelion and it's been digesting over and over in my head for the past few days.

Gotta say what a trippy experience, I might have to post my feelings about it in depth in the pop culture section.

 

[Spidernova]

Learned a couple Stan Rogers tunes. Canol Road is really fun to play.

 

[dusters]

Managed to go up from 1100th to 793th place in national rating in table tennis in Latvia in 4 months.

My table tennis coach says that he has coached even a 40+ years old men to top 100 in the country so I'm not too old to start.

This is another sport I have taken up. First was chess - got to 3rd place in the country U12, then there was bridge and I got to approximately candidate master level, maybe top 100 in the country, then darts in 2024 - got to top 200 in the country, but that's not really high, because there are only like 600 serious darts players in Latvia. Now table tennis.

As a chess coach myself I love seeing progress in my students and progressing myself in another sport is a good experience. Table tennis coach is only 1 year older than me, so
we are on close terms and he is really open about a lot of stuff. I love it. He sees me as a colleague as well.

My dad played a lot of tennis in his 40s so me playing table tennis seems similar. Keeping up a good level at three sports simultaneously is impossible, so my darts and chess level has dropped in favor of table tennis, but progress is the quickest in the beginning so I'm enthusiastic and all ears. The honey phase for me is usually 6 to 10 months. In the first 10 months of darts I won my first (beginners) tournament and was really feeling good about myself. After 10th or 11th month my results started to stagnate, I needed a coach to go further. I didn't find a darts coach so I gradually lost interest in the sport.

Table tennis is much more widespread both in post-USSR and USA, so I was able to find a good table tennis coach quickly. I feel really blessed. Because enjoying the sweating and hard work in training is what gives long term gains.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Table tennis is much more widespread both in post-USSR and USA, so I was able to find a good table tennis coach quickly.

It used to be a big sport in China. maybe it still is.

 

[dusters]

It used to be a big sport in China. maybe it still is.

It is still official national sport in China. Therefore China is the leading country in table tennis and has been since chairman Mao times.

Many Chinese expats in USA play it/teach it, so I suppose it is at least moderately popular in USA as well.

https://www.olympics.com/en/news/the-pride-and-glory-of-chinese-table-tennis

Fun -fact

Ping-pong diplomacy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Snerk]

Sold my flat and bought a house with my gf! Well the first and second floor at least. The extra space was much much needed for our small family. Moving everything sucks though, but we're mostly settled in by now.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Shooting Around​

Dear Diary:

Most Sundays, I walk to the outdoor basketball courts at Julia Richman High School in Midtown Manhattan. It’s my ritual: 50 shots from the “old man’s foul line,” then a bench break with the paper and a text to my adult grandchildren to report the day’s stats. One recent Sunday, my favorite hoop was free. As I warmed up, I noticed a man watching from the far sideline. It was a hot day, and he looked out of place in his jeans and sweatshirt.

“Want to take a shot?” I called out, tossing him the ball. He didn’t move in closer. From an awkward angle and distance, he launched an ungainly, almost archaic two-handed shot. It swished through the hoop without touching the rim.

“Wow,” I said. “Can you do that again?”

He did — three more times. Then he walked to another distant spot and did it again, never saying a word. We played together but not in a coordinated way. I passed him the ball after my turn; he never passed back.

After my usual 15 minutes was up, I paused. “I’m going to stop,” I said. “Feel free to keep using the ball.” He did not respond. I sat and read. At some point, the bouncing stopped. I looked up. My ball was resting under the hoop. The stranger was gone.

Now, when I am at the schoolyard, I glance toward the sideline. Just in case.

— Ernest Brod

 

[dusters]

“Youth in the new Latvia” -story/rave about Independence day of Latvia, 18th November

My friends and I often visited a hangar with a skate park. It was a place outside the center of Riga, in a fairly industrial area. The guys would throw skateboards, roller skates, and BMX bikes into the trunks of their cars and drive off to get some exercise on weekday evenings. Renting the hangar cost around 2,000 euros (2500 dollars) a month, so we had done a lot of PR for this business. We recruited former Latvian pro skaters who teach children, and created several zones in the hangar similar to ski slopes – one for beginners, one for experts, and one for those who are simply brave and athletic. There were also zones that were only for BMX bikes and only for aggressive inline skating. A local plywood company helped us with the wooden structures.

This community was full of camaraderie and friendship. We went there to stay in good shape, to get some exercise, to learn from others. To a large extent, it was also dad culture. What does that mean? Riga fathers in their thirties and forties (and some in their fifties) would take their children to the park, dress them in full protective gear, including helmets, elbow and knee pads, and teach them how to skate. It was a great relief for mothers that two evenings a week, dads would drive their kids to the skate park and spend meaningful time with them. In addition, they would recharge with positive emotions at the skate park, meet their friends, listen to the music of their youth there, and come home in a fantastic mood.

Occasionally, a mother would try her hand at rollerblading in the beginner's area, but that was relatively rare. The prerequisite for being in such a place of extreme sports was to know how to fall well. Therefore, learning to skate at the age of 40 “from scratch” was much riskier. The children also got to know each other there, made friends, learning to do these sports. However, this was a folk sports event, and the children were not prepared for competitions, they learned tricks for their own pleasure. If someone wanted to compete, then, of course, they could additionally train at the Riga Skateboard School or elsewhere.

I liked going there, because the environment was very inclusive. Everyone was invited to learn to ride under the supervision of adults, under the supervision of coaches. Many young people were also able to get to know the fathers of their peers in that environment during their teenage years, which was not possible in the fragmented life of the big city. This meant that teenagers could try to arrange a summer job for themselves, while their fathers, who were often either managers, bosses, or even shift leaders, could tell them in advance what a 15-17-year-old daredevil should learn so that he wouldn’t get in the way of their summer internship at their company, but on the contrary – help the overall flow of work.

After a good workout, people want to eat, so across the street one of the fathers had created an interesting eatery complex. On the second floor there was a Spanish restaurant, on the first – an American pizzeria, in the basement – an LSSR-style diner with borscht, solyanka, goulash and everything else that people ate in the 1970s. All three floors promised something exotic for young people from the skate park, because none of the establishments competed with Hesburger, MacDonald or Narvesen fast food.

Moreover, everything was logical – the restaurant was the most expensive and the food had to be waited the longest, the pizza could be obtained in twenty minutes, which was faster, and it was a thick and fluffy pizza in the American style, but in the basement the service was provided by smiling pensioners, there was a picture of Stalin on the wall, the motivational inscriptions of the USSR era “Let's be hardworking and thrifty!”, but the hot soup was poured from a 30l pot by a kitchen worker, Uncle Vanya. All three floors were united by kitsch, but at the same time the quality corresponded to the prices.

You could say that this whole event was a business created in the name of nostalgia and sentiment, because it has been studied that men's taste in music is stable from youth. Anyone who listened to Aurora and Ladezers (post-punk bands akin to Joy Division in Latvia) in the late 1980s, and then went to the barricades with their parents, could remember their childhood in a USSR-style “restaurant”.

Those who were younger were impressed by memories of MTV's arrival in Latvia in the 1990s, American goods that could suddenly be had for a lot of money, imported goods.

The Spanish restaurant was extraordinary. It was for those who, despite the Baltic Bank crisis and other chaos in the nineties, had still managed to get rich and flew abroad for the first time, including to Spain. Moreover, they had done so before Latvia joined the EU and before cheap Ryan-air flights.

Another reason for such a hangar was that there were no normal skate parks in Latvia in the 1990s. There was a ramp at VEF in Riga, a few private ramps, such as the one in the band Mixeri video, but in general, at a time when skateboarding was in full force in America and Western Europe, there were still few opportunities in Latvia to skate in places where there was no risk of a police van arriving and chasing young people away.

As the national holiday approached, fathers and some mothers, who had gathered for a festive feast in the skate park recreation area, remembered Atmoda (National awakening) and sang songs by Ieva Akuratere (a bard who sang patriotic songs).

The feelings from the Baltic Way, from 1990, from the Barricades were there. Someone had brought some old money (which was used from 1990 to 1992) to the feast to show the children. Someone else had flyers from the Barricades.

Was it all just business and nostalgia, sentiment? A father said that he was proud that he had not emigrated to Ireland or Britain, that he had been able to provide for and raise three children here, in Riga. A mother said that precisely because of the collapse of the USSR, she could not afford a family of three children, and had to settle for only one child.

Everyone together raised a toast to health. Still standing on a skateboard at 35 or 57 years old and not falling off, slowly rolling in all directions, even with guards, even with a helmet, is still a lot.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Live feed: At this moment there are lava fountains in Kilauea caldera.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I took this picture of the same vents at the end of October. The fountains are appearing about every 2 weeks or so. I was there between them. the smoky fire pit shown below is at one end of the main Kilauea caldera. The tree are at the edge of the caldera (smooth black lava)

 

[Kaitzilla]

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[Birdjaguar]

Lost and Found​

Dear Diary:

I was jogging near my house when I saw a crumpled $50 bill on the ground.

For a second, I was elated at my good luck. Then I noticed that the bill had fallen right next to a crumpled receipt from a nearby grocery store. The slip of paper had the time of the transaction, just 10 minutes earlier.

I brought the cash and the receipt to the store and handed them to my favorite cashier.

“Oh,” she said, scanning the items listed on the receipt: canned beans, cottage cheese and tomato juice. “I know this grandma.”

Then she left the register and ran off toward the woman’s house.

— Anya Kamenetz