I Vanquish You, Laplace Transform!

It’s amazing how tiny things can turn my life into a productivity machine. I finished a math set two hours before deadline, paid a bill, signed a housing contract, and it feels like I’ve built a brand new moon rocket. I’m ready to learn a bunch of complex analysis that I was told I wouldn’t need this term but I do anyway, burn off every ounce of excess fat with a Paula Abdul exercise video, and waste a whole bunch of time looking for cheap digital cameras on ebay.

Growing up, nothing my sister or I purchased could really go unquestioned - my parents never tried to explicitly control our expenditures, but if we made any major purchase at all it was probably frivolous and they always asked several times if we were sure that’s what we wanted. I’ve internalized this to a huge extent (dude, why am I choosing all the ex- prefixed words today?) and so whenever I spend more than about $10 in one place, it feels like jumping off the high dive - I have to close my eyes, plug my nose and carefully rationalize and scrape up my courage. It takes me weeks to even begin to contemplate actually buying the things I want that I know I can afford, plus lots of emotional support. So I’ve dipped my toe into the market for a $100-$200 digital camera, used or refurbished - got any recommendations? glowing testimonials of the joys of digital camera ownership? dire warnings of gangrene contracted from a seemingly adequate el-cheapo model?

Caltech will not garnish my future income just because I bought a single toy. Caltech will not garnish my future income just because I bought a single toy. Yes. Fine. I think I can put in a stupendously low bid now. Good night.

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