Nightmares and Nonstandardized Tests

I just took two hours to complete a refresher course on the battery of tests we took last year. They were introduced as a way of making sure that everyone in the division knew basic facts about the AMA and its functions, as well as how the division itself functioned. The reason I'm annoyed about it is that it took six hours last year, two hours this year--75 questions, 95% required to pass--and I used none of it. Over the last year, none of what I learned in that course was useful to me in any way. I suspect it came in with the push toward data analytics, since a test provides a measurable score that can be compared against others. But it's like standardized testing in that it's more useful for administration to feel like they're accomplishing something rather than actually getting useful results.

All large organizations are dysfunctional, whether business, government, or non-profit. Their dysfunctionality just manifests in different ways.

I didn't do a lot over Labor Day weekend because the weather in Chicago was especially rainy. I went to a performance of Nightmares and Nightcaps, based on the work of John Collier, which I wasn't previously familiar with. And I'm not sure I'll seek out any more of them. They were very...period, with a particular view of women--namely, that they're all idiots or harpies--that was evident enough I couldn't get into it. The audience liked a lot of the individual segments, but I didn't really find much of anything funny.

The best part was the frame story, though the part where even the Devil is no match for the intricacy of Hollywood contracts wasn't bad.

Sunday and Monday both had a lot of rain. Monday had torrential rains for most of the afternoon--I was playing Final Fantasy VI and at one point I looked up, ready to go shopping, and found a wall of water cascading down outside my window. I elected to wait a bit, and when I did go shopping, half an hour later in the forty-five minutes between the first downpour and the second, I had to dodge a lot of puddles.

I an interesting article about metabolism, where the author goes into a metabolic chamber that precisely measures her calorie intake and output. It's good because it points out how little we still know about how metabolism works, and also because of this:

Yet the truth of the metabolic chamber is that there’s a lot of variation in how people respond to diets and exercises, and so far, no single approach has worked to help everybody. That’s why so much of the one-size-fits-all weight loss advice we’re steeped in is so frustrating and futile for so many.

As Epictetus said two thousand years ago:

Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you and be silent.

I'm still extremely tired today because I keep waking up due to nightmares. Last night I woke up at 5 a.m. after a zombie dream, though I managed to get back to sleep eventually, and the night before that I woke up four times from nightmares. I remember one, about having missed the JET deadline completely (in reality, applications haven't even opened yet), but nothing about the others. Maybe tonight I'll finally sleep in peace?

I doubt it.

Game Review: ファイナルファンタジーVI

Final Fantasy VI is my favorite Final Fantasy, and playing it through again hasn't changed that opinion.

I didn't own an SNES as a child, but several of my friends did. I remember us playing through FFVI together, trading off at various story points, taking turns naming characters--I named Setzer "Han" because he was a gambler and a scoundrel and also I was ten--but I didn't get very far. I came in wherever the person's save was, and of course it wasn't a group game or anything like that. They absolutely kept playing while the rest of us weren't around, and so I only remember bits. The Opera House where I got to name Setzer, of course. The opening crawl, obviously inspired by Star Wars, with Tina (Eng: "Terra"), Biggs (Eng: "Vicks"), and Wedge piloting their mage armors across a desolate snowfield toward the lights of Narshe in the distance. Protecting Banon on a raft down a rushing river and repeatedly choosing the looping fork to take advantage of his healing ability. But no consistency. No real understanding of how the story all fit together. All that came later when I played it through on my own.

If you've played the game, you're hearing the music now.

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