Thoughts on Chaos Theory and the Color Orange

Yesterday I made progress on my projects: I finished preparing my three-hour presentation on gender and language differences and got about half of my rough draft on chaos theory and education banged out. Part of chaos theory is that in a chaotic system, certain patterns keep repeating themselves. This is called "self-similarity". So, I got to thinking about a recent commonly repeated pattern (or attractor?) in my life - the color orange. Seriously. It's been stalking me ever since I graduated college.

Just out of college, I worked in the environmental field for a couple of years. We did a lot of drilling and surveying at various construction sites. Surveying equipment? Orange. Construction vests and cones? Orange. Waitressed briefly at Hooters. Uniforms? Orange (except on Formal Tuesdays, of course). When I arrived at grad school, you can imagine my dismay at discovering the school color. Orange. Not a subtle orange, either, but bright, almost fluorescent orange. As a grad student, I have an assistantship, and on Fridays all staff/faculty are supposed to wear...orange. I don't own a single piece of orange clothing (aside from the old Hooter's uniforms); nor do I ever intend to.

Considering my aversion to the color, you may well ask why I chose an orange template for this blog. It seemed fitting somehow, and the ironic concession to fate may appease the gods of chaos. Perhaps the next time I choose a grad school, its colors will turn out to be blue and white.