My Simple Grudge Index is just the time the grudge is held divided by the time the grudge should have been given up.
Before we get to my grudge, let's consider a hypothetical case.
Sister's Selfish Coat
Let's say that a person has gone off to work and sends money from each paycheck home to his widowed mother. Now this hard working person finds that one of his sisters has the audacity to buy herself a coat rather than giving the money spent on the coat to their widowed mother. It might be understood that this hard worker could be upset with his sister's spending money on herself when he's helping their mother get by but you'd expect him to get over that in just a couple of days after he realizes that it might be cold and the sister needs a coat or that maybe Mom can survive without another ten dollars.
So let's say that this grudge is held for around 30 years and you'd expect it to be dropped after three days. That would make the SGI around (30 years * 365.25 days/year) / (3 days/grudge). That comes out to more that 36,000. That means the grudge is held about 36,000 times as long as you'd expect. That's a lot.
Master's Degree Thesis and Doctoral Dissertation ideas: Grudge indexes that include more factors such as the intensity of the grudge, secondary grudges of others, and tertiary grudges of those who have incidental effects from the original grudge.Now consider my grudge.
Missing Point
In my first semester of college in 1973 I took Physics 101. One of the first labs was to measure the Earth's gravity. It involved measuring the distance a marble dropped in a known time. We had a stick hanging on a nail with some carbon paper attached to it. We pulled the stick to the side and held the marble at the pivot point. We released the stick and the marble at the same time. We measured the distance from the pivot point to the spot the marble and the stick collided (a mark was left by the carbon paper on the stick where the marble hit). Now, we know that the period of a pendulum is constant no matter how far it swings so we didn't have to measure how far the stick was pulled back. Maybe it was another experiment where we determined the period of this pendulum.
Now, the teaching assistant had us record how far the marble fell measured to the nearest quarter inch. We repeated the experiment several times and averaged the results to come up with our estimate of the Earth's gravity.
Since our measurements were to to quarter inches, my averages were rounded to the nearest quarter inch. In my lab report I reported my numbers decimally so some of my numbers were something like 12.75. The T.A. took off a point because my reported results were too precise. I was told I didn't measure to the hundredth inch.
I know I didn't measure that precisely. I didn't report them that precisely. It's just the nature of quarter inches reported as a decimal fraction. All of my results ended with .00, .25, .50 and .75. That was reported in exactly the precision we were told to measure.
I WAS RIGHT AND THE T.A. WAS WRONG! I should have marched up right then and there and demanded my point back. (That was one point out of 25! That's four percent of the lab!) But was shy then and I hadn't learned to challenge authority.
I hold this grudge to this day. I want my point back.
My Simple Grudge Index. I should have gotten over it in about 10 minutes (the time it would have taken to talk to the T.A.) I've held the grudge for nearly 35 years. So, let's do the calculation: (35 years / 365.25 days/year * 24 hours/day * 60 minutes/hour) / (10 minutes/grudge).
My SGI is around 1,840,000. I've got the hypothetical Sister's Selfish Coat grudge beat 50 times over. I'd say it's time for me to drop it.
(I want my point back.)
14 comments:
Chuckie...how the heck do you come up with this stuff? I want your point back, too!
Do you think that if you went back to NM Tech and presented your calculations to the Physics Department professor, he would be so impressed that he would restore your point and adjust your grade accordingly? Or would you have to go through the Math Department to get it corrected? Either way, I'd sure give it a try. Holding a grudge that long certainly can't be too good for your well-being. Not to mention the effort it took to figure it all out. You deserve that point!
which sister got the coat?
The sister with the coat got the hard-working person's goat. AH-hahahahahahahaha!
Chuckie, Stirling Colgate lives up here and shops in the store. You want me to ask him to return the point?
How do I come up with this stuff? I don't come up with "stuff"...I'm just reporting my life.
Which sister got the coat?
Well, let's say that the hard working person held his grudge against the selfish sister so deeply that he didn't let at least one of his children know that he even had this sister. (How can somebody keep that a secret when their widowed mother is living with him and his family? Did widowed mother have a gripe with selfish sister/daughter, too?)
Interesting coincidences about Dr. Colgate and bookstores.
When I was accepted to NM Tech I was awarded the privilege of working for 20 hours a week while taking a full schedule of classes. They even chose the job for me! I got to work for Dr. Colgate on his S.N.O.R.T. (SuperNova Observational Radio Telescope, or something like that. I'm confused now because I thought it was an optical thing.) project. That involved observing galaxies repeatedly and comparing their brightness. When one changed brightness I guess it was supposed to suggest that a supernova event might have occurred and closer observation was called for.
I never managed to do any work on that project. Dr. Colgate was on leave when I arrived. He was hiking around the Himalayas. So one of his graduate students gave me something to solder. (I guess my college application had mentioned my astronomy club membership and 4H club's electronics focus.) Nobody had time to really give me any guidance so I mostly collected my paycheck.
This wasn't satisfying "work" so I got a job in the school bookstore instead. They put my programming skills to use in their inventory system.
I never actually got to work with Dr. Colgate. So he'd probably not bother pulling strings on my behalf.
O.K. I can drop this grudge.
I just dug out my college transcript and for Physics 121 General Physics I I got a B. For its lab I got an A.
So it looks like that point didn't go down on my permanent record!
What a dither over nothing. (But it's the principle!)
You said at the beginning of your grudge that it was Physics 101 lab when the point was deducted, but now you say you checked the Physics 121 lab grade. So what was the grade for the Physics 101 lab? You just might have to renew the grudge after all!
There's a great "grudge building" in my neighborhood. It's 2 houses joined at the side. Owing to a 30year family fight, one of the houses got very broken down and decrepit. Nobody was living there for years and years, but the person who owned it never kept it up. There were holes in the roof; it was probably home to a million rats. I heard the story from the occupant of the good side; she was sitting out on her porch one day when I passed. She was constantly having leak and vermin problems at the border between her house and evil house. Finally the evil half was condemned. Why did it take so long?
I have a grudge against a college roommate who swiped an ashtray that I made in shop class. That's almost 30 years old.
You need to add the damage factor to your grudge index. The Sister Coat Grudge caused family pain and discord for years. The Physics Point Grudge was not even noticed by one party. This parameter should surely be worked in to the equation.
*sigh* Forgiveness really is a wonderful thing.
Oooooh....your library work gave me bad memories. I, too, was gifted the privilege of working on campus while I studied for my Master's degree. They assigned me to the library, also working to upgrade to a computerized system. It was horrible! There came an opening in the speech and hearing center--wouldn't that be a great experience for a Speech Pathology major?--but they would. not. transfer. me. Grrrrrrr.
I have a grudge against Rutgers University.
Some more comments on comments.
I guessed at the course number being 101. That's usually the number for introductory courses. But maybe that number was reserved for remedial work. There was no Physics 101.
As I said, the index was very simple. If you want to factor in the effects on others or how it affected distant relatives, you'll have to pursue a Master's or Doctoral degree and work on some of the ideas I suggested.
If you want to factor in the effects on others or how it affected distant relatives, you'll have to pursue a Master's or Doctoral degree and work on some of the ideas I suggested.
Not if it is at Rutgers!!!!!!
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