I don't know what I'd do with a semester system; as it is, my motivation always runs out about two weeks before the term ends. With two finals and one possible homework set left, I'm starting to really look forward to going home and having my wisdom teeth pulled. Vicodin, Harry Potter, no physics, and soup - what more could I ask for?



Meanwhile, I'd like to train the feminist ray gun on an anti-drug ad - it takes something special to piss me off when I'm eating pickled herring and drinking a good beer to celebrate the end of my complex-analysis-homework-doing career, and this had that special something. Two teenagers at a house party, one girl, one boy, both taking hits off a circulating pipe. Girl is obviously, gigglingly stoned, boy is less so; girl falls down on couch next to boy, who promptly puts his hand down her shirt. Cut to boy's hand putting the pipe down on the table as girl mumbles "nrrgh" and text appears on screen reading Marijuana can impair your judgement. Harmless?



I mean, fuck. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure having sex with someone who is obviously too stoned to say anything more than "nrrgh" constitutes rape. If you interpret "nrrgh" as a clear refusal of consent (hey, it sounded like "no" to me), then it's really, incontrovertibly rape by any loosely sane definition of the term. Being raped is not something you ask for when you smoke a joint. Lacking the strength to say more than "nrrgh" is not an error of judgement. I mean, fuck.



Sure, it's a stupid move to get that stoned around people you can't trust. But the girl's moment of impaired judgement happened at the very beginning of the ad, while the text doesn't appear until the end.
I guess it's just the social conservatives consolidating their agenda - irrational fear of drugs and irrational fear of sex, all in one professionally produced package! Hurrah!



I mean, fuck.

Meanwhile, my web host decided to do a few "upgrades" - and by "upgrades" they mostly mean "move directories around for no good reason, screwing up everyone's scripts". A few things are back in order, and hopefully that's enough to carry all y'all crazy addicts through the next two weeks; updates and maintenance will be slim to none until I'm done with finals.

I had the nerd-trendiest Thanksgiving ever: drove to San Jose Wednesday night, ate non-stop turducken on Thursday and Friday, and went geocaching on Saturday. Geocaching was very close to perfectly wholesome, except I ripped a big hole in the butt of my pants and went around
for several hours showing my underwear to the world.
Today I learned once more that California is a really big state that takes a long time to drive through. I am thankful for candy corn, organic carrot juice, duck fat, thimbles, felt-tip markers, the word "finagle", nail clippers, and vanilla. I am not thankful for finals, George W. Bush, books about why women should be submissive in marriage, or quarters that have been too munged-up to fit in the washing machine slot.



The great and powerful Rasmus is now safely ensconced on my living room couch; watch his blog for hijinks and catty remarks about the filth in my kitchen.

So here's how it works in the Caltech band: everyone takes turns on the high parts, so we can blow our brains out on Shostakovitch without worrying about painful, painful consequences twelve Sousa marches later. Or that's how it works in theory, and during most rehearsals. At the concert, of course, everyone just plays whatever part is in front of them, and no one admits that they're supposed to play the top part of the Sousa march.



My lip hurts.



On the other hand, the soloist brought in a contrabass saxophone. If your bandwidth is burning a hole in your pocket, it's worth taking a listen, while I head off to find a nice beer.

1. I have a theory, which I unfortunately must state in the jargon of linear algebra: La Marseillaise, Deutschland Uber Alles, and March of the Volunteers (the anthem of the People's Republic of China) span the space of all possible national anthems.


2. I have been searching, off and on as my self-image wavers, for a low-cal, non-cigarette food substitute. I have a great deal of obsessive-compulsive energy invested in moving things from hand to mouth as I study, you see, but if you're not trying to quit smoking, you can't just start chewing on sticks. People look at you funny.


3. You know it's going to be a long night when you start commenting your code as a dialogue between two guys called Ole and Sven:
   

   
   
   % Hey, Ole! Vat about dem slownesses? Ve need a slowness matrix, dont'cha know.
   
   % Vell, Sven, I've always wanted to use da magic() function for something, and da slowness model is arbitrary...
   
   

   
   

Just as I am about to hit a bout of self-pity (conveniently overwhelming my physics set) someone comes along to remind me of the good things in life:

kumquats and rutabagas

Mmm, kumquats. Life is better with funny-named foods.

indeed

Indeed, indeed. Indeed.

??

Indeed, indeed. Indeed.

Jeg dr�mte stjerneklart om vinden ...

Virkelig? Så behøver du en rejse, eller måske du har nogen bitterhed til din job. Fortælle mig om din mor.

Parseval's realtion

Parseval's relation

Ah, I see. We'll switch to English, then; after all, I cannot practice psychoanalysis in a language I do not speak. Have you ever felt intimidated by the mathematical accomplishments of your mother's relative? What relation is Parseval to your mother, anyway, and has he ever made fun of you for stuttering?

ATOMS

That's hardly a sensible relation. You're clearly not taking this therapy seriously. I give up.

I need the info so I dont fail science.

No no: if I give you the info, you'll never construct it for yourself and it will remain forever meaningless. You should find yourself three test tubes, scissors, some cardboard, a goldfish and a ruler, and go from there.

do you want the beef or the fish?

The fish.

I'm on a committee that makes more committees; Caltech's student government is brilliant like that. Over the past two nights, we've spent 10 hours interviewing students to fill up our 9 latest, greatest committee creations. If I hear one more person talking about how they wanted to give back to the community, and serving on some random committee seemed like a good way to do it, I'm going to break out in stripes.



It's interesting that people without an ax to grind tend not to be appointed to committees here; I haven't decided whether or not this is a good thing, and I've no oomph left to ruminate. Thank goodness the Dean hands out free homework extensions like candy if you're doing Important Committee Work.



Also, I need a machine that chews my cud for me, and spits out profoundly silly sound bytes.

Speaking of blogging about gardening... Mondays are landscape maintenance days in this little block of student housing, and today they brought out the leaf blower. A large he-boobied man had the blower backpack on, and every so often you could see him raise his black extendo-arm and rev the motor, blowing a quick riff into the sky. He blew bits of dust off the sidewalk and onto the lawn for a while; then he switched gears and blew bits of lawn onto the sidewalk. Tired after a couple hours of that, he blew some cigarette butts back into the lawn and left.



I am one step closer to becoming a crochety old lady who goes to city council meetings, to bang the podium with my umbrella and demand an insanely restrictive noise ordinance. Or else grabbing a handful of radioactive waste from the fridge and holding the whole block hostage until everyone agrees to let me use their lawns as my private organic spinach farm.

Written on the chalkboard in the band break room, with large, awkward cursive in multi-colored chalk:

What I Love About Caltech?

I love the coloured chalks.

I also like the gardens.

And the weather.

There are people I like, and I like that they like me.

There are some students at Caltech that I would love, if they loved me back.

But they don't, so my favourite part are the coloured chalks.

I can't even remember the last time I've had meat, apart from last night. Quite clearly it's been long enough for several important meat-digesting strains of E. coli to have given up and left, seeking a better future in the L.A. water treatment facility. I hope they're having fun now, wherever they are; my intestines were totally lost without them.



It's one thing to be semi-mostly-vegetarian by choice and laziness, but when it's forced upon me by ravening hordes of insensate bacteria I get a little miffed. Next thing you know, I'll be lactose-intolerant and MSG will give me migraines, and from there, where does it end?



Also, fainting goats.