Extracts from 'The last lecture'

The last lecture

Introduction
"i have an engineering problem , while most of me is in terrific shape , there are 10 tumours in my liver and i only a few months to live"
feeling sorry  wont do any good

chapter 12 :
preemptive : to undertake an initiave so as to avoid an almost certain , usually unpleasant event in the near future.
ex : Randy had seen his very bad results as CT scans : 10 tumors in the liver , cancer that had reached metastatis. He knew he wasnt going to live much long , so when the doc finally came with the hard copy of the scans , not knowing randy already knew the results , Randy preemptively said 'we know' so as to avoid the doc's reiteration of the established grim facts.

bereft : affected by the loss of something dear
palliative : some sort of medicine or therapy intended to ease pain , but not offer cure.

chapter 14

semantics : study of meaning ,conveying an idea with different word selection to imply a different mood, approach of saying the same.
example : 'randy , its such a shame that people perceive you as being arogant , because its going to limit what you are going to be able to accomplish in the future.' is just the other way of saying 'randy , youre being a jerk'. But this approach makes randy open to criticisms. This is semantics in action.

chapter 16

machaivellian : cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics.
scrupulous : diligent, thorough, and extremely attentive to details...very concerned to avoid doing wrong.
unscrupulous : having or showing no moral principles; not honest or fair.

chapter 21
prognosis : 1. a forecast of the likely outcome of a situation.  2. The future course of medical condition.
Foreshadowing : Foreshadowing or guessing ahead is a literary device by which an author explains certain plot developments that may come later in the story. It is used to arouse and mentally prepare the reader or listener for how the story will proceed and unfold.

chapter 24
'the only way were gonna improve... is if we develop a real ability to assess ourselves. If we can't accurately do that , how can we tell if we are getting better or worse ?'

'The great thing about working out at a gym is that if you put in effort, you get very obvious results. The same should be true of college. A professor’s job is to teach students how to see their minds growing in the same way they can see their muscles grow when they look in a mirror.'

chapter 29 : 'earnest is better than hip' hips is just temporary , earnest lasts a lifetime.
chapter 30 : raising the white flag
'somehow , with the passage of time , and the deadline life imposes , surrendering became the right thing to do'
- personally , i suppose ill take it as setting the priorities. Surrendering to one ascept , so that you can have more time to fight and win on another , GREATER front. makes sense to me.


chapter 39: be the first penguin
'EXPERIENCE is what you get , when u didn't get what you wanted'

chapter 44 : show gratitude
precedent : an earlier event or action that is regarded as an example or guide to be considered in subsequent similar circumstances.
example : 'a fellow professor took me aside and said : "randy , how could you do that ?" perhaps he thought i was setting a precedent that other fellow soon-to-be-tenured professors would be unwilling to follow'
-on randy's taking his entire 15 member team to a (all expense paid) trip to disney world when he got tenure. It was his way of saying thanks to their hard work that helped him get the tenure.