Author: Pavowski

I am a teacher, runner, father, and husband. I am an author-in-progress. I'm bad at jiu-jitsu. I know just enough about a lot of things to get me into a lot of trouble.

A Quickie about Evolution

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I teach theatre.

Because I teach theatre, I also teach a fair bit of psychology and sociology.

Because I teach a fair bit of psychology and sociology, I also teach a little bit about evolution.

Why, you ask?

Because it’s useful to know, as an actor, not only that a quick movement is more likely to draw the audience’s attention than a slow one, but to internalize the reason why (because we evolved, as all predators do, to zero in on movement). Or why the audience’s attention naturally shifts to the actor closest to them (because the person closest to you is the one who poses you the greatest threat — so it’s best to keep your eye on them). Or why it’s so important to use the body when telling stories (because we understood pantomime and gesture long before we developed language). Or any number of other curiosities of the brain.

And two things occur to me, every time I go down this road of teaching evolution in a theatre class:

  1. I am very likely teaching these students more about evolution than some science teachers ever will.
  2. There are almost certainly students sitting in my seats rolling their eyes because they have been indoctrinated to believe evolution is not real.

Both of which are pretty shocking. But because 1) is true, I think it’s vitally important that the kids hear it from somewhere. And because 2) is true, it’s important to expose kids to voices that don’t agree with them.

Plus, I just love to get on their nerves.

“Wait, I thought this is theatre — why’s he on about evolution?”

Because my job is to teach the whole child, kid.

A Quickie about a Clippie

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Apropos of absolutely nothing, here is a $100 binder clip.

Put aside for now how you spell the word “clippie” (here I’m talking about a “clip-type-thing” and not an adjective meaning “cliplike” — for which “clippy” would almost certainly be correct).

I don’t really have anything to say about it. I just wanted you to know that it exists.

Speidel Mens Money Clip, Business, Credit Card Holder Engravable Stainless Steel

Okay, so Amazon claims this is a money clip, but, come on. You can’t fool me. That’s a tricked-out binder clip.

I mean, I love binder clips as much as the next guy. Probably more. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that binder clips are my #1 favorite office supply. (The fact that I care about office supplies enough to have favorites should be enough to tell you that when I say binder clips are my favorite, I’m not just fargoing around.)

And don’t get me wrong. It’s clearly a very nice binder clip.

But — and I feel pretty confident in saying this, too — I am not sure there is a circumstance under which I would pay $100 for a binder clip.

But if one were to procure said $100 binder clip, one would have to feel strongly enough about it to give it a name.

A name like Clippie.

A Quickie about Curves

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This pandemic is a lot of things, but one thing it isn’t is confusing.

Viruses are designed (and I use “designed” in the loosest possible sense, i.e. not actually designed but rather shaped by their environment and by evolution) to replicate and spread themselves as efficiently as possible. Some are very good at this and stay widespread and contagious for a long time, others are not so good and die out or are easily contained.

COVID-19 is pretty good at spreading itself. And once you know how good it is at spreading itself, then how it spreads becomes a pretty simple math problem. When plotted out geometrically, patterns emerge in the form of lines and curves.

Blatantly stolen from https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/

These lines and curves are not confusing. As more people are exposed, more people contract the disease, and then those infected move on to expose even more people.

Again, these lines and curves and concepts are not confusing.

And yet so many people you meet in the world seem not to understand these simple concepts at all.

The pandemic is not confusing.

What is confusing is the way people react to the pandemic. Because it is very easy to pretend that it’s not a big deal when it’s not affecting you, but rather those people, over there.

But suddenly, when the pandemic affects somebody close to you, it becomes a lot more serious.

I guess some of us have forgotten that we all live in the same fishbowl.

Fish Bowl, Fish, Glass, Water, Bowl, Goldfish, Aquarium

A Quickie on the Quickies

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What the heck am I doing here, anyway?

For the longest time, I sort of made my bread-and-butter on this site these longish, pondering deep dives on whatever.

But lately, I just don’t have the stamina or the focus for all that.

Maybe it’s being 40.

Maybe it’s COVID and everything else going on in the world.

Maybe I’ve just gotten lazy.

Whatever the reason, I didn’t have it in me to sit down and write 1000-plus words about whatever, so I haven’t.

But then, my thoughts about myself turn dark. Writing has sort of become a big part of my identity for the last several years, so to not write … well, that’s an issue, right? After all, I still want to write these little blargs. Even if they don’t mean much to anybody outside of my own skull.

So, maybe my long wandering posts aren’t in the cards right now. But could I do two hundred words? Could I dip my toes in a topic instead of cannonballing into the deep end of overthinking? Hammer out a few words instead of over a thousand on whatever’s in my head?

Yeah, maybe I could do that.

the lord of the rings GIF

So, this is me doing that. This is me putting words one after the other, moving the needle, keeping the momentum going … even if it’s only a teeny tiny bit at a time.

It’s something. And something, most of the time, is better than nothing.

Know what else is better than nothing?

Cat gifs.

nothing GIF

A Quickie about Geeks and Cups

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Because I am a geek, my co-workers, colleagues, and students didn’t think it was odd that I got a Star Wars tattoo over the summer.

Because I am a geek, nobody thinks twice about my Doctor Who lanyard or the assortment of posters featuring fictional characters hung up in my office.

Because I am a geek, students are quick to include me in conversations about which Marvel movie is best or which superhero would win in a fight. (I don’t actually know. Marvel movies are great fun but I can’t say I’m super-invested in them, and I definitely for sure don’t know which one would win in a fight — except it would totally be Thor — and I double for sure definitely don’t know anything about the comics, which always disappoints them when they ask.)

Because I am a geek, I pay something of a price when it comes to discussions of real “man things” like football (American) or football (proper) or baseball or, lol, basketball. On these topics I root for my home teams and my alma maters, when I can be bothered, and know virtually nothing of the respective leagues at large.

And because I am a geek, when I lost my Star Wars cup, it was returned to me within a week.

The cup itself isn’t special — it features characters from the second-worst Star Wars movie, after all, and as such I wouldn’t care about it too much — but it was given to me by a student who said, earnestly, that I was like a father to him.

So when it appeared on my desk after going missing for a week, I was pleasantly surprised. I tracked down the colleague who returned it, who said “oh yeah, it said Star Wars, so I figured it was yours.”

REUNITED and it feels so refreshing

Geekiness has its perks.