SPEAKER: So after perhaps the fourth draft of my script,
the world is beginning to look like a fractal, which
is in a way cool, because even the creation of a script,
if you think about it, is a fractal.
I've been creating all these drafts that are very similar,
and it seems that the script writing process
has been endless and infinite.
But hopefully it will and.
I'm actually enjoying it at this point,
even though it has been a lot of the same thing.
But every day, I come back and I do more research on fractals,
and I learn many cool things, which
then makes the decision of what to put in the video
and what to take out a lot more difficult.
But I managed to cut it down to about 600 words
at this point, which clocks at around four minutes and 10
seconds in a fast rate, so that does give me a bit of leeway.
I can't really think of other things
I could add, though I can certainly
see some things I could take out that I wouldn't want
to take out, but that's always been the biggest struggle,
because there's so much cool associated with fractals.
And there is a reason why I started seeing the whole world
as a fractal, because there are so many patterns
and repetitions in everything.
Right now, I'm looking at my corkboard, and it's a fractal.
And the walls of east campus look pretty random,
but I'm sure there's some repetitions there.
And this makes math really cool, because essentially, it
is the study of patterns, and as long as you can discover
those patterns, you can then apply
them to solve real-world problems, which
is what I wanted to convey to the viewer
because that's not the side of mathematics people
usually learn.
And when you tell them that, in math, we study patterns
and we use them to solve problems,
that's often surprising because we are taught so many tools
in school, that we don't even think about how
to apply them usually.
And I think that's very sad, because it's
the applications that make math really cool, or otherwise
the concepts that are not really offered at school,
like infinity.
So that's about the video.
Today's class was a lot of fun.
I know I mentioned that I was excited for the critique,
but there was still a bit of a concern
that I wouldn't handle it very well, that it would be somehow
a saddening or worrisome experience, which
really wasn't like that at all.
I appreciated all the things that were said.
I suspected more criticism, because that
may have been more helpful, but in the end,
I came back home, I looked over all of the comments
from constructors, and they made a lot more sense
after the session when people actually said them out loud.
And I also looked at the suggestions by my classmates.
And even though the structure of the video and most of the words
are different from what it was at the beginning of the day,
a lot of those suggestions are still a part of it.
And hopefully I was able to incorporate them all.
I checked, but like I said, the script
changed so much that it's difficult to pinpoint
the minor changes.
And I guess my biggest concern was the overall structure,
and that's something I felt was a bit off when I originally
wrote the script, but I also thought that I could improve
that by showing a lot of cool images and animations,
which isn't how it works.
So, I am happy that I got to cut it down.
That's something I've always enjoyed
with every piece of writing I've done-- cutting out
the unnecessary words, to me, has always seemed like the most
necessary thing to do.
At least that's the way I was taught,
because five years ago, I would write sentences that
had three or four adjectives in a row
that I thought were absolutely essential to the story,
and if you introduced a character,
you had to describe all of his or her clothing.
So I learned the hard way that that really wasn't the way
to do things, and I thought I learned that lesson,
but I'm still learning five years later
to cut things out and sacrifice what I
think is absolutely essential.
Except this time it's not four adjectives
but it's a ton of fun math facts that to
me are absolutely amazing, but to others
are probably overwhelming, because they
have five minutes to learn about this stuff, and I had hours.
But, hours were spent to cut things down,
and they have been cut.
I'm really glad with the way the class has made me feel
about my writing abilities.
I guess it was nice to see my weaknesses and my strengths,
because now I understand better how to describe
mathematical concepts.
I always felt-- I always went for the really abstract, shock
value kind of math facts, but that's not
what I've been trying to do with the video,
and that is really nice.
And I always go back to the conversations
that I had with the sixth graders and just remember them
and the things they were interested
and the vocabulary they knew.
So that was an essential learning
experiences-- an essential learning experience.
That said, I don't think I have anything to add at this point.
Looking forward to more comments on the script.
Hopefully there are fewer of them this time.
Although, I can probably think of ways to improve the script,
and I can definitely do that again tomorrow, if necessary.
With the absence of the final statement, I end this.
Farewell.