learning curves

My time in Taiwan has been passing like freakin high speed rail train powering down the track headed toward one of the towns with a name that I don't know how to pronounce. I can't believe it will be August in two days.

I want to talk about learning curves. What is a learning curve exactly?

I guess it charts an increase in competence,knowledge, and/or performance ability over time. It deals with a the ideas of noticing it, questioning it, trying it, experiencing it, understanding it, applying it, narrowing it, widening it, failing at it, trying it again, forgetting it, recalling it, sharing it, autonomously choosing and executing it. And then what? Then you gain a skill or tool that will always be at your disposal.

What if we all charted our lives out? ...infinite progressions of curves swooping upwards . we just keep making curves. reacting to stimuli and making changes. We embark on curves together as class mates, as voters, as employees, as girlfriends and boyfriends, as tourists. The curves are not sloping lines...not a step ladder-like pattern... not a rise-over-run that I could easily just step back down and retreat back to the origin. They are accelerating or decelerating curves that make it not so easy to undo the exponents and retrace your steps back to square 1. These curves sweep us up. We can not help but to be carried away. Our life is patterned. Things occur. We notice, and then upon reoccurrence, we learn. Our insides become patterned too.

This is a promotional ad for my time at the Taiwan Princeton Review Office and for my strange/awesome summer in a foreign country. It ended up never getting posted. So 4 months later, here it is.