Shawn profile picture

Shawn

revolushawn

About Me

Rich voice, bouncing gait, gesticulating hands, booming & infectious laugh, curious, love synthesizing crazy ideas in conversation with friends, outgoing but comfortable with silence; explorer, creator, challenger...ENTP (Myers-Briggs)

I've traveled a good amount, including living abroad. An important lesson for me has been that changing the U$ is key to changing the world.

I've done lots of different sorts of education and social justice work. Currently teaching college math, applying to PhD programs, and experimenting with ways to disturb the comfortable so that the disturbed may be comforted.
For social life beyond corporate consumerism, for education beyond the rat-race.
psst...btw, use lime or lemon juice for deodorant. I been using it for several years now! It works! Just take a slice o'lime and squeeze a few drops!

My Interests

revolution, intense conversation, staring at the sky, seeing patterns in society, music, dancing like it's a religious experience, mathematics, communing with nature, ping-pong, activism, giving hell to The Man, learning to use The Force, anarchism, education for liberation, vocal drum circles, party games, riding my bicycle fast—weaving past the cars stuck in traffic, home-cooked meals, alternative institutions, making people think, letting myself feel, remembering my dreams

I'd like to meet:

People unplugging from the matrix. People who want to take the world/self to the next level. Those who think and feel outside the box. People who understand that what’s been made can be unmade—and made better. Other (r)evolutionaries. Anyone who will challenge me or inspire me to go deeper.

Music:

Fleetwood Mac, Sly and the Family Stone, the Doors, Stevie Wonder, Massive Attack, Ben Harper, Beatles, Leonard Cohen, Public Enemy, Zap Mama, bhangra, Saul Williams, Dead Can Dance, Moby, Fela Kuti, Van Morrison, Led Zeppelin, U2, Raul Seixas, Legião Urbana, Portishead, Prince, Radiohead, Tricky, Mazzy Star, Pixies, David Byrne, Tori Amos, The Roots, Annie Lennox, U2, Soundgarden, KMFDM, Cheb I Sabbah, Propellerheads, Underworld, Sarah McLachlan, Sigur Rós...and many others
any tune I compose while walking

anything that makes my booty shake, my emotions stirred, or my imagination soar

Movies:

Star Wars, The Matrix, Tampopo, Waking Life, Undercover Brother, Amandla, Bowling for Columbine, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Pay it Forward, Fight Club, Blade Runner, The Wall, Goodwill Hunting, The Neverending Story, Princess Bride, Shawshank Redemption, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Rabbitproof Fence, Whale Rider, Waking Life, Lord of the Rings, The Cruise, Eyes on the Prize, Baraka, Amelie

Television:

What is TV? Oh, you mean that quaint 20th century invention for selling consumible culture? (Tho, it'd be cool if there was a one hour weekly pop culture synopsis I could watch to stay up on folk's references...)

Books:

Deschooling Society (Illich), A Pattern Language (Alexander et al.), Thinking Forward (Albert), sci fi (Heinlein, Aasimov, Herbert, et al.), A People's History of the US (Zinn), The Meme Machine (Blackmore), The Social Animal (Aaronson), Please Understand Me (Keirsey & Bates), Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg), Guns Germs and Steel (Diamond), Summerhill (Neill), Labyrinths (Borges), How Children Fail (Holt), Politics of Nonviolent Action (Sharp), Illusions (Bach), The Shape of Space (Weeks), Visual Complex Analysis (Needham), lotsa stuff on math, cognition, complex systems...

Heroes:

Anybody who refuses to obey The Man.
Anybody who lets their Love Light shine.

My Blog

Imagine a World, 3: Domestic Exchange Programs

I don't know if anything like this exists, but it should, especially here in the US.Preamble:one thing that is wonderful about international exchange programs is the amount of learning that typically ...
Posted by Shawn on Sun, 04 May 2008 10:52:00 PST

Imagine a World, number 2: the Party Circle

So you want an active and more varied social life but you're tired of paying so much money just to get out of your cave, hang with friends, and meet new people. Or maybe you don't even do that, but yo...
Posted by Shawn on Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:07:00 PST

Imagine a World, number 1

ok...so i'm tired of paying so much attention to the actions and views of ruling elites (i.e., reading the news) but, at the moment, i have no interesting actions of my own to report on (i.e. i'm most...
Posted by Shawn on Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:48:00 PST

i passed my prelims!

[ok! ok! long time no blog! and long time no communicate, period. i been in math monk mode. sorry!]I've passed my prelim!After a semester of being here, working hard but always with a dark cloud of se...
Posted by Shawn on Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:23:00 PST

moments of assholeness

my major low point today:I was sitting out on the porch, trying to figure out an absurdly ill-posed homework assignment for a frustrating class. Two late-teens/early 20s dudes walk up, dressed in suit...
Posted by Shawn on Thu, 13 Sep 2007 02:51:00 PST

the prelim exam (and beyond)

So the stress of taking the prelim is over&but now it is replaced by the anxiety of awaiting the results. We should be finding out by Friday late afternoon they say.So by this time tomorrow I'll eithe...
Posted by Shawn on Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:41:00 PST

arrived in Berkeley

so after a week and a half of couchsurfing (actually, sleeping in a converted bathroom) at the home of a motley crew of righteous radical queers Jamie, Frank, Ariana, Tiffany, Joy, Micah, and Ada, i'v...
Posted by Shawn on Sat, 21 Jul 2007 09:58:00 PST

race, class, and (sub)urbanity in the East Bay

Imagine&A city where people lead lives in which their choicesof where to live, of where to socialize, of who they can talk toare not constrained by the dictates of race.What can I say that hasn't al...
Posted by Shawn on Sun, 29 Jul 2007 12:54:00 PST

response to a friend about careers and social change

Andrew wrote:good to hear from youjust curious if you are intend to focus your math studies on social change somehowi've felt pretty frustrated applying my engineering knowledge towards social healing...
Posted by Shawn on Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:03:00 PST

Berkeley, baby!

as many of you may already know, i'm off to work on my math PhD at Berkeley. I'm sooo psyched to have time to do nothing but study, to get paid to be a nerd =) and i am looking forward the blissful li...
Posted by Shawn on Sun, 06 May 2007 07:29:00 PST