Awash in a Sea of Humanities.

This weekend we had our friends Karl and Meg and their little boy Andrew over to our house. It was really good to see them. They had last been here for a week in August and even though that doesn't seem like a long time when you are two every month seems to bring about huge changes. Andrew is now babble talking more coherently and he is starting to be a little more careful and thoughtful in the way that he plays. For instance he did not just pull magnets off the fridge but pulled them off and then arranged them into shapes on the fridge. He also was able to get around just that much better this time. Maryanne has a great post about him being a ghost.

We also had our friends Ariann and Derek over on Saturday to visit with Karl and Meg and little Andrew. During this visit everyone got analyzing the movie Up. Then on Sunday we had our friend Ky over after Church for lunch. Soon Karl, Maryanne and her were discussing how to get a GCU group going at UVic. It was during this conversation that Maryanne made the comment that she did not know anyone outside of the History or English departments. It was at that moment that I realized that my life has gradually become surrounded more and more by people deeply entrenched in the humanities.

Allow me to present my evidence. My wife is in grad school to become a historian. This means that all of the university people that we get to know, any conferences that we go to are all about history. Our friend Ky who goes to Church with us and is Maryanne's lifelong friend is in grad school to get her doctorate in some sort of English literature thing. Our friends Karl and Meg are both humanities people. Karl is getting his PhD in some sort of wisdom literature field and Meg has her bachelors degree in political science. Our friends Derek and Ariann are also humanities focused. They both have their bachelor of education but are specialized in humanities. Derek in English and Social Studies and Ariann in Music and Social Studies. Even among the teachers at school I am the only one that's only focus was science. The closest to another science guy is our new vice-principal Mr. Douglas. I think that he was a geography major and understands meteorology really well but his focus and passion is not science but instead Christian Ethics, which is very important.I do have a few people at Church who are science guys but at this point I only really see them on Sundays.

So what does all this mean? Well it means that a lot more of my conversations are about humanities. I know that a lot of the people mentioned above are now saying "Hold on Chris, we talk science all the time!," which is kind of true. We talk about popular culture science. Things like the show Big Bang Theory, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, etc. We also discuss science fiction, but I realized this weekend as I listened to some very intellectual people wade into an overly deep discussion on the movie Up that I don't really have anyone local that I can discuss the corresponding science stuff with. For instance how might we actually make the dog translator collars that are seen in the movie? I do not remember that last time I could really debate and discuss stuff like how the FTL on the Battlestar might work. When I mentioned to Derek that I would prefer to make robots (more applied science) than play Wii (popular culture science) he seemed surprised that I would prioritize my time this way. I think that in the next while I might try to seek out more people to do science things with.

I hope that I did not offend any of my friends who are focused on humanities. I like our conversations and I enjoy the things we do. This was more of a realization that since the beginning of the school year I have not talked with anyone about the big science thoughts in my head and I miss that. In case anyone is wondering the main thought projects I have been working on are skyscraper farms, quantum entanglement FTL engines, light rail train system for Regina. I miss doing science with others as colleagues rather than always as the teacher. 

Well, its late and I need to go to bed. Good night.