Notes from the Ivory Tower

"Finally...*finally*!"
Say it with me now:

Senator Franken!!!!!!

...Well, I suppose technically it's still "senator-elect," but after all this time, I'm not beyond a Lobelia Sackville-Baggins moment.

Finally, freakin' finally, 2008 has now ended everywhere in the world; my brain was one of the last remaining holdouts.

Only thing that could make today better is if Bill O'Reilly's head (metaphorically) explodes tonight, but I suspect he'll be sour enough to deny us that last bit of gratification.

Congratulations, Senator. Now go get to work; America needs your help.

(Oh, and in case anyone is wondering about the source of the quotation in the headline, it's from the John Adams HBO miniseries. Some of my quotations can get a bit obscure at times, even for me.)

Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Music: Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville

Heads-Up
I'm sure by now everybody's heard what happened today at NIU.

I just wanted to let people know that I'm OK. Still trying to get word on who exactly has been killed or injured.

I'm still a bit rattled, though; I've been a TA for classes in Cole Hall for five semesters straight now, so I know that building backwards and forwards. We had class there yesterday, as a matter of fact.

Classes for today and tomorrow have been cancelled. I decided that I wanted to see my family, so I packed up and came home to Mendota, where I'll probably spend most of the weekend.

My thoughts go out to those with loved ones killed or hurt in this mess.

Stay safe, everybody.

Current Mood: shocked
Current Music: Political Repression in Modern America - Robert Goldstein

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., 1922-2007
And so it goes...

I'm still a little too shocked to say much right now. I guess I'd always assumed he'd never die.

Like my opinion matters, but Kurt Vonnegut was a Good American: the type of American most of us should be, but rarely find the time, the nerve, or the sense to be. It'll take a lot of us stepping up to fill the void he left.

...The right words just aren't coming to me. Heck, even the wrong ones seem to be on tape-delay.

I'll miss you, Mr. Vonnegut, like I miss all Cranky Old Men. In pace requiescat!

If anyone wants me, I'll be standing...

...in the shadow of Musket Mountain, when the sun goes down.

Current Mood: sad
Current Music: The King James Bible - The Gospel According to Luke

Oh, To Be In Minnesota, Now That Spring Is Here...
It's official!

Don't believe me? Then go here, and look around:

http://www.alfranken.com/

Say it with me now...

Senator Franken. Senator Franken. Senator Franken.

Senator Franken!

I quite like the sound of that.

Go, Al, go!

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: The King James Bible - The Gospel According to Mark

"Take a Look; It's In a Book..."
It appears I'm still alive. Wonder of wonders!

I skulked around the university library for a couple hours today, just for something to do that would get me out of my apartment for part of the weekend. Slowly, I became more and more depressed, because it occurred to me that even if I could read ten books a day, acquired total recall so that I would never have to read a book more than once, and restricted my reading list to those topics that I already had initial interest in, I'd still never be able to read them all.

Plus, I felt guilty about checking anything out, since I have stuff that needs doing which really ought to take higher priority.

Then the title of a particular volume caught my eye, and my mood brightened immediately:

"Scott of the Antarctic."

After that, all I could think about was Michael Palin wearing a fur coat on a beach and fighting a 40-foot-tall penguin.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, the map of Southeast Asia on the fourth floor is no longer current (only to be expected with a 2001 copyright date, I guess) in that the capitals of Burma and Palau have changed.

Good night, and good luck.

[Edited to fix the timestamp to something approximating the correct local time. Lousy UTC defaults...]

Current Mood: restless
Current Music: The Return of the King - J.R.R. Tolkien

Psst! What's the Answer to Number Seven?
Well, I was in the office until 9 last night, and until 8 tonight, but now it's official:

My analysis homework that is due on Monday is done, in the can. "Pau. Thirty. Ended."

(+2 points to the first person that can identify the source for that quotation; +2 more if you can do it without Googling (or resorting to any similar such data-mining method).)

One of the proofs was *exceedingly* convoluted, and very much a group effort, but we nailed it down in the end.

Let me tell you, it's quite a shock to finish something with time to spare, particularly for a guy like me, who is normally found perpetually living on the short end of the deadline.

Furthermore, we took a test in analysis two weeks ago. I actually went over to the library and studied for this test for a couple hours. Evidently, it was time well spent, since I got a 98 on it.

Who knew that doing stuff paid off?

Why, I even got through the crossword in the paper today!

It's almost enough to make me start on my algebra homework tonight, too...

Nah...

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Ibid

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!
I think it's about time I took a road trip. The autumn skies are calling to me. (That, and gas is seventy cents a gallon cheaper than it was a month ago.)

To that end, I'm going to work like a demon to try and get a whole bunch of stuff done by Friday night. That means homework done, papers graded, laundry done, and apartment generally spruced and straightened. (If I get through half that list, it'll be far better than my tally most weeks.)

One thing, though: the weather had better be good. In fact, it had better be dazzling, like it was today. I'll *not* stand for it to be so nice early in the week, when I'm in class or my office all day, and then wake up Saturday morning to gloomy-Gus overcast, drippy nonsense.

Hmm...WeatherBug says it'll be mostly cloudy on Saturday. This does not bode well for me. Ah, well. I'll probably go anyway, as long as there isn't a blizzard outside, or rivers of lava moving down the highway in the slow lane.

I haven't really decided where I'd like to go, though. The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota would be a promising candidate, only I don't think I'd have the time or inclination to go that far.

Perhaps another day's reflection will provide illumination. It often does.

(P.S.: I *finally* finished my Current Book! Yay!)

Current Mood: pensive
Current Music: The Two Towers - J.R.R. Tolkien

Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy...
So it's 1:30 in the evening on Saturday night / Sunday morning, and I am *totally* buzzed/wired/wide *freakin'* awake, baby!

Why? (Here's a hint: it certainly isn't due to my having a rich nightlife.)

'Cause, well, I just solved a math problem. At least, I'm 99.9% certain I've solved it.

AUDIENCE: (grumbles) "Aw, geez, here goes the math geek again..."

ME: "Quiet, you..."

'Twas not just any problem, though: a BEAR of a problem. We were assigned this problem Friday morning in my analysis class, and our professor seemed to hint that it might take us a while. I spent much of Friday afternoon trying with a few other people to solve it, but not much headway was made. (Basically, we needed to find an example of a set that exhibits a certain, seemingly counterintuitive property.)

At some point, I gave up trying to come up with a specific example, and started trying to describe some properties which *any* suitable example would share. This was an interesting (to me, anyway) line of inquiry, but I didn't get too much farther along Friday, and several people suggested that it was probably a waste of time.

So today I did quite a bit of cleaning, and I also went grocery shopping. Around midnight I started planning out my itinerary for tomorrow (it mainly involves grading papers and the continuation of cleaning), when I remembered the problem, and I decided I'd solve it or fall asleep trying. Then I lay down on my sofa and let my thoughts go back to my investigations from Friday.

Suddenly, something occurred to me that hadn't before. So I checked it out, and danged if it didn't look like a solution. I double- and triple-checked every requirement, and it *all* held.

The amazing thing is, the example fell *right* out of the abstract stuff I'd been working on earlier, almost like a compass pointing the way north. Even more amazing, once I had an example, was the further realization of how much it could be generalized and still remain true. On Friday I called it a "bastard of a problem"; tonight I'll amend that pronouncement to "magnificent bastard of a problem." It's the type of thing where you can't see the answer until you flip your thinking, but once you do, you wonder how you ever overlooked it.

So now I'm so excited and keyed up that I'm climbing the walls, and I don't know how I'll *ever* last until Monday.

Of course, it could turn out that the problem isn't that hard after all, and quite a few people will come in with solutions on Monday. Were such a thing to happen, I would, in all honesty, feel a bit put out for a while, though I would most likely get over it.

For the moment, however, I'm going to hang on to the fading fantasy of mine that I'm still a bit of a wunderkind.

I'm always astonished whenever I do something that *isn't* bone-stupid.

Anyways, this has been probably the happiest thing to happen to me in the two weeks since the semester began, and so I felt duty-bound to report it to my faithful readers.

Your servant, as always.

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: Ibid...still.

Home Is Where The Hearth Is...
Late summer in Illinois is, in a word, breathtaking. (Excluding the tornadoes, of course...or, strictly speaking, maybe not.)

In passing, let me add that I worked that last sentence over for at least ten minutes, trying to get something that was neither too morbid nor too contrived. I think I ended up settling for something that was too unfunny. However, in the meantime I concocted this fanciful dialogue:

PATRON: I could use a breath of fresh air.
VENDOR: We have fresh fresh air and fresher fresh air.
PATRON: What's the difference?
VENDOR: The fresh air is from Cheshire; the fresher fresh air, Inverness-shire.
So, do you want the fresh or fresher fresh air?
PATRON: I...can't decide! There's too much pressure!
VENDOR: Choose, or I'll roll out the thresher...
PATRON: ...I'll take the fresher fresh air, for sure.

Say that five times fast, if you fancy. (And the first smart-aleck to come up to me with "thatthatthatthatthat" gets a boot to the head! ;-) )

Where the heck was I going with this? Oh, yeah...

I spent all of July and the first week of August in Mendota with my family. The new house is all right, but the grounds are *beautiful*. Any biologist who came to visit would have his or her hands full...

There are pine trees with prickly needles, other trees (spruces?) with soft needles, oak trees, apple trees, a cherry tree, a walnut tree. The previous tenants were gardeners and birdhouse-builders, so there are more types of flowers than I can count, and plenty of robins, wrens, cardinals, red-winged blackbirds, bluebirds, yellow birds, and so forth. There's a little man-made pond/waterfall in back, so there are lily pads and algae as well. It's been rumored there are bats, and I've seen squirrels, rabbits, field mice, frogs, monarch *and* emperor butterflies, and at least three different kinds of mushrooms.

You can turn one way and see Mendota High School and watch the band practice marching; turn again and watch the traffic on US 52; turn again and see Lake Mendota off in the distance; turn again and see fields of alfalfa and corn waving in the breeze. You can stand out in the front yard and watch the setting sun and see yellow and orange and blue and green laid out in front of you, like someone unfurled a picnic blanket, and hear nothing but the wind and the drone of cicadas.

At night, the stars come out, and you look up and wonder where they've been for so long, and whether that one is Mars or Antares, and whether that one is Jupiter or Venus, and whether that's the Summer Triangle or not, and where in the heck the space station is, and how long will it be until Orion is visible again, since that seems to be the only constellation you can instantly identify.

The Perseids were out last week, too. My dad and I went outside to watch, and even though we weren't out during the peak time, we got our money's worth.

It was all rather hard to leave.

Then again, the plumbing is all fouled up right now, so it wasn't *that* hard.

In any event, I'm back in DeKalb, and gearing up for another semester. The grad students report on Thursday, and classes start Monday. I've immensely enjoyed my summer of bumming around, and feel ready to get back to work and learning and stuff.

That's all I have to say for now, I guess. Stay tuned to this station for further developments.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Ibid

DOOOOOOM!!! (-esday Book...)
OK, I'll need to take a shower later to get the cheesiness of that subject line out of my system, but I must tell you all this.

Being the professional bum that I am, I'm staying up tonight and surfing the web. What, pray tell, do I find? A story from Yahoo! News that Britain's National Archives has just put Domesday Book up on the internet!

Didn't ya hear me? *Domesday Book*!! Pages and pages of property and tax records over nine hundred years old! (Is anyone else drooling yet?)

One of the realms under the domain of the overlord that is my nerdiness is English history, so reading that made my heart go pitter-pat.

Then I read further and found that to see the actual transcripts, I'd have to pony up $6.60 per page (although that does come with a translation of the Latin involved). Sigh.

They *do* have summaries of the records up for free, which is neat. If you're curious, this is the place to head toward: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/

Now I'm off to go compose something profound and hauntingly beautiful. Then I'll tear it into a million billion pieces and slap together something trite, cacophonous, and cornier than the feet in a podiatrist's office. You know, same as usual. :-)

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Ibid

Checking In
"I have returned." --General Douglas MacArthur, 1944

Shame on me, not posting for so long. By way of explanation (though not excuse):

In May, I was a zombie.
In June, I was busily working.
Now it is July, and I have recovered from the stresses of both extremes, and I am myself again.

I've had lots of time (here and there) to think, and so I have many things to say, but as yet my thoughts are still cluttered. I think the best way to clean house will be to pick a room and get to work. I don't think I want to dive right in on scrubbing the tiles in the bathroom right off, though, so please allow me to begin with something simple. Hmmm, simple subject...aha! The weather...

The weather erred today. I'm fairly sure it meant to rain here, but somehow the task just slipped its mind. All the materials were here--clouds, a stiff wind, high levels of humidity--yet the plan was never set in motion. Needless to say, I was quite annoyed. In this respect, the only thing worse than an unwanted rainy day is an unwanted, unwelcome, feared, *dreaded* rainy day that doesn't bother to show up. It's like knocking a dictionary off of a high bookshelf, and not hearing a "BOOM". The book lands in a beanbag chair, or on a pile of clothes, and having winced in preparation for a heavy thud, one hears much less than expected.

It's almost enough to make one pick up the book and drop it again, to get the "BOOM" one was owed.

Anyway, such is my report for the manner of weather here today: "Meant to rain, but didn't get around to it."

Hmmm...

Maybe the weather and I have more in kinship with one another than I supposed.

I make two promises now:
First, that my next post will be (much!) more timely than this one was in coming.
Second, that the subject of that post will be more interesting than the weather, if only marginally so.

Until then.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Ibid

Poetry Corner
I wrote this a few weeks ago, while taking a break from thinking about winding numbers, the Cauchy integral formula, and rings considered as right modules over themselves, said modules being both artinian and completely reducible. (Said break was desperately needed, though perhaps undeserved.) Enjoy...or not; it's up to you.

Twelve Seconds of Doggerel

Gouverneur Morris,
Which one's the poorest?
Trees for the forest.

Back is the sorest,
Send for Dolores
And a thesaurus.

Cube or a torus,
Artemidoris;
There ain't no more-est.

Current Mood: dorky
Current Music: The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien

Reports from the Front
Well, we moved, with no complications. My family now lives in Mendota, along a country road just off of US 52. The house is somewhat old, but it's neat. There are *three* fireplaces, which I doubt we'll ever use. The backyard is full of birdhouses and bird feeders that the previous owners left. There is also an odd-looking structure that to me resembles a torii gate of some sort, and so I intend to treat it as such. You can also see a lake (Lake Mendota, I've been told) from the back.

The vistas are just marvelous out there. Those of you who commented about nighttime viewing were spot-on; last week I saw more stars (with a full moon, no less) than I *ever* had at the old place. We're down the road from a cemetery, and one evening a low fog rolled into the area, making the cemetery in particular look deliciously spooky.

One task which remains is the process of extracting stuff from storage, unpacking, and generally setting up shop. I've been helping a little bit on weekends, but my sister (who is moving back home from Iowa) is the one who's going to be in charge of most of this. I really hope this goes as fast as possible, mainly because two-thirds of my personal library is still in storage, and it is likely to be the last stuff recovered and brought home.

***

School is going all right. Finals are in three weeks, and at least two of my three finals will be take-home exams. Right now I'm putting off grading some projects that need to be scored by Monday. I'll buckle down around four o'clock tomorrow afternoon, I think, and square them all away.

I've learned quite a bit, mathematically speaking, in the past year, but at the same time I've regressed socially. I haven't really made any close friends here. Now that the weather is warmer, I've been taking walks around campus, but for the most part, I'm either in class, in my office, or at home.

Basically, I've been lonely for a while now. I can see ways of fixing this, but they all involve raising my current levels of conspicuousness and anxiety. Always a trade-off...

In sum, if anybody out there has a new or slightly-used swift kick in the ass that they'd like to mail to me, I would much appreciate it.

***

On a lighter note, tonight I finally finished the book on world religions I'd been reading since Christmas or so. One reason it took so long is that I chose to read this one aloud for 80-90% of it, to help it sink in a little better. (Another reason is that I reread Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein a couple of times in between chapters.)

All of the preceding means that, officially, I am "between books" at the moment. Though I daresay a reread of The Lord of the Rings will be next, the time of year being what it is.

However, I think I'll wait till morning to make a firm decision on the matter.

Until then...

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: ???

"Well, I'm goin' out west where I belong..."
Aaaaaaaaand...I'm back! Anybody miss me?

So, I've got some news. After a year of false starts, frustrations, and other delays *not* starting with 'F', my family is FINALLY moving. (Well, we hope. Technically, the deal could still go sour, but it looks as though everything will fall into place. For once.) I'd like to share my thoughts on this.

We *definitely* need to move. The main reason we moved into our current house back in 2002 is so that we could take care of my grandparents, who were in poor health. (For example, the house is five minutes away from the kidney dialysis center my grandmother went to.) But the benefits of living here have long since been overpowered by the drawbacks. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

--Both my grandparents have since passed away.
--For only being twelve years old, this place has needed a *lot* of things fixed (such as repairing one side wall of the house when it started pulling away from the main frame, due to *somebody* not properly bracing it in the first place).
--The property taxes here are nuts.
--The school system here gets money up the wazoo, and *still* manages to teeter on the edge of bankruptcy.
--The freaking homeowners' association is driving my dad crazy with its ridiculous bylaws (which, we suspect, are not even being uniformly enforced).
--Pick five routes to get within ten miles of here; at any given time, three of them are under construction.
--There are too many stores, too many restaurants, and too many people. More are coming every month. I used to be able to look out my bedroom window and see farmland; now I see another subdivision. There doesn't seem to be *any* thought given to long-term planning, to conserving space by building multi-story offices, to proper traffic control (they just string a traffic light up when they decide they need one), or to responsible preservation of wetlands (can anyone say "gigantic flood plain"?).

So we're moving, about an hour due west of where we are now, to a nice house built in the sixties, situated on an acre lot just north of Mendota (and two or three fields north of the high school). No traffic, lower taxes, and the freedom to park a pickup truck on the front lawn whenever we damn well please.

Of course, this will be the first time in my life that we will be living somewhere other than Will County, Illinois. This is rather unfortunate, as I was just getting to know my way around here. Also, we probably won't get WCIU out in Mendota. WCIU is an awesome independent Chicago TV station that shows Three Stooges shorts and Svengoolie movies (both hosted by Chicago broadcasting veteran Rich Koz) on Saturdays. (For those of you unfamiliar with Svengoolie, think MST3K meets Count Floyd.)

Other than that, though, it's pretty much win-win. We'll be pretty far from Chicago now, but to be honest, we seldom go to Chicago anyway. The closing date (::crosses fingers::) will be April 7th. After that, I must remember to call about fifty different places and change my address. Sigh.

Ah, well. We're heading toward the promised land. After twenty years, my father's soul will be at peace...out in the boondocks.

Wagons west!

Current Mood: energetic
Current Music: Ibid (I'm up to Chapter 16, though...)

Jeezum Crow!
I've never been to New England (though I would very much like to one day), but I have heard that it gets awfully cold there in the winter. So I busted out my most favorite New Englander euphemism for the title of this post, since conditions here in DeKalb have recently turned doubleplusunwarm.

In plainer terms, it is cold, cold, *cold*!! (Yahoo! Weather puts the current air temperature at 3 degrees Fahrenheit.)

Don't get me wrong; I can live with cold. But to my mind, cold is best experienced when accompanied by a rip-roarin' blizzard. The cold today persisted through dazzlingly sunny skies, which ticked me off probably a bit more than it should have. The skies tonight were just as clear, which would have made for some excellent stargazing, but for the fact that it's so darn cold out. I guess that's a moot point, though, since I don't have my telescope with me anyway.

So, heads up, everyone! If you're in northern Illinois right now, go outside and enjoy the stars and the cold air--for about twenty seconds; then, run back inside and get warm again. :-)

In other news, I've decided to pull a gypsy switch in my "Current Book" line. I've had "Le Morte D'Arthur" in there for months now, and to be honest, I haven't picked it up in at least two months. So I think I'm going to bench it for now, leaving myself the option to pick up where I left off at a later date. This will allow me a clear conscience to start some books I've been clamoring to get to: Frank McCourt's "Teacher Man," a collection of Emerson's works, and a copy of Darwin's "Origin of Species," among others.

The immediate substitution, however, will be an old textbook I had at Bradley. I've been wanting to read the whole thing for a while now (we only covered parts of it in class), and right around Christmas I just cracked it open and started in on it. It's made for fun reading, so far. Speaking of which, at some point I must remember to sing for a while about the two complementary states of paper. For the nonce, I think I'm going to get back to my book.

In closing, stay cool--uh, well, you know what I mean. :-)

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: A History of the World's Religions - David S. Noss

Andreas Katsulas, 1946-2006
I have just learned (off of Wikipedia, and confirmed on a fan site, though Memory Alpha and IMDB don't seem to have picked this up yet) that Andreas Katsulas passed away yesterday from lung cancer at the age of 59. I thought him to be a marvelous actor, and I am certain the world is poorer without him.

Of his many roles, I remember him most fondly as Ambassador G'Kar from Babylon 5 (my favorite character on the show). I thought I would take this opportunity to honor his memory by posting a few of my favorite G'Kar lines.

***

Narn Courier: "Are you Ambassador G'Kar?"

G'Kar: "This is Ambassador G'Kar's quarters. This is Ambassador G'Kar's table. *This* is Ambassador G'Kar's dinner. Which part of this progression escapes you?" --"The Parliament of Dreams"

***

(to a would-be assassin): "You will know pain, you will know fear, and then you will die. Have a pleasant flight." --ibid

***

"No Dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power governments and tyrants and armies can not stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once; we will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be *free*." --"The Long, Twilight Struggle"

***

(The following was taken from http://www.visi.com/~wildfoto/synopsis/514.html, since I couldn't hope to remember the entire thing on my own. The scene is from "Meditations on the Abyss")

G'Kar is lecturing his followers on the evils of being too serious, as if that will prove that they are better than everyone else, more enlightened. They can't be free unlit they learn to laugh at themselves, and from laughter comes wisdom. G'Kar asks for the next question. A follower throws a couple of big ones at him: What is truth? And what is God?

G'Kar: You don't really want an answer to that question.
Narn: Yes, I do. Please.
G'Kar: If I take a lamp and shine it toward a wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often, we assume that the light on the wall is God. But the light is not the goal of the search. It is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it.

The followers are not following this at all. G'Kar has them all confounded. Dr. Franklin stands in the background smiling at their confusion.

G'Kar: Similarly, someone who does not search, who does not bring a lantern with him...sees nothing. (He sighs in frustration) What we perceive as God is the byproduct of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light, pure and unblemished, not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe. God looks astonishingly like we do. Or we turn to look at our shadow and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose, which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty...and all its flaws...and in so doing better understand the world around us.
Narn: Ah...yes...but... What is truth? And what is God?

G'Kar laughs. At this rate, they're never going to get it. This time G'Kar answers more simply. Truth is a river, and God is the mouth of the river. The room is filled with murmurs of understanding. Franklin smiles and gives G'Kar a sympathetic shrug.

***

Farewell, Mr. Katsulas. And thanks for the memories.

Current Mood: sad
Current Music: Ibid

Yawn...
Well, I was going to update, but I spent the past two hours tinkering with my profile, and now I'm too tired to add much else. Maybe I'll do a proper update in the morning.

Until then, enjoy skimming over my first impressions of myself.

Good night, all.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Ibid

Hertz, Don't It?
I love, love, love, love, LOVE college radio. (Guess what *I've* been listening to tonight?)

It's so deliciously amateur. No set formats, no polished delivery, no mindless Top 40 pablum, nobody butting in every seven minutes trying to sell you something.

All of this means that you get the honest truth, no matter the topic, factory direct to you, no middleman. That, and they take requests.

Back when I was at Bradley, cj and I toyed with the idea of applying for a slot at the college station, but other stuff got in the way, as it was and is wont to do. Even so, it remains one of my secret dreams to run off and be a comedy writer (you know, in case this math gig were ever to go awry). Usually this dream involves ending up writing for Conan O'Brien, or a revival of Futurama. However, on occasion, it takes the form of me getting a radio show and doing two hours of original (or cunningly stolen) comedy every weeknight, just like Steve Allen used to do back in the day, before he hit it big.

Heh. Like I'd ever have the time for that. If I live to be a hundred, I'll only be fifty-six.

At least I can live with the satisfaction of knowing that the Republic is all that much safer with a nut like me beyond reach of the airwaves. :-)

"Good night, and good luck..."

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Ibid

Yeah, Yeah, I Know...
I should update more often.

Break was good. I did a whole lot of nothing, and did it very well, thank you very much.

Classes are back into full swing, and I think I'll be able to handle this semester without major difficulties, blah blah blah.

On to the real reason for this post:

Tonight I had the opportunity to go out and socialize with my classmates/fellow TAs, and I chickened out. Evidently, I'd much rather stay home and do the dishes.

The original venue, suggested about a day beforehand, was altered around five hours before the meeting time. For most people, this would be no problem, but for me, it took a situation with which I felt some discomfort (but decided I could handle) and changed the parameters enough to the point where I just couldn't accept the variation.

I told myself I was being irrational, that there was nothing to fear, that the best way to deal with an unfamiliar situation is to make it familiar, that the whole point of the excursion was to relax and have fun, and so of course I got more and more nervous and twisted-up about nothing, and stayed home.

I am a creature of habit. My habits tend to skew academic. Put me in a classroom, or a library, and I am in my element, conducting, directing, and conjecturing with glee. Put me in a typical "social" setting (not my forte), and I quickly turn inside-out, and every second is torture until I can go home. Usually, I have to know either the people or the place (preferably both) *really* well to deal. I have to have as few variables as possible introduced, so I can run the major scenarios in real-time and develop contingency plans for the likeliest.

This is all stupid, obviously; some events simply don't have easy algorithms. I fear losing control, yet the very idea that I am ever *in* control is an illusory one. But still.

And so it goes. I suck.

Time to get back to the dishes...

Current Mood: embarrassed
Current Music: Ibid

Reports from the Front
Well, I got my grades for this semester: two A's and a B. I'm content with that, since the B was in abstract algebra, which is both deep and demanding. (Don't believe me? Take a look at the Fundamental Theorem of Galois Theory, and get back to me. :-) )

I'm taking Topology next semester, so I got out my copy of Simmons' Intro to Topology and Modern Analysis, to try and brush up on metric spaces over break.

So, I'm probably going to head home for the holidays either tomorrow or Monday, depending on how fast I can get packed.

***

I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but I'm currently obsessed with the European Union. I have so much love for the concept, but I'm not sure I can adequately put it into words.

I like the idea of a common currency for Europe. It's bad for banks, I suppose, but good for everybody else. One no longer has to spend all morning converting lire to marks and gulden to escudos. A euro is a euro is a euro, in Brussels, Bratislava, or Berlin. (However, allowing each member nation to mint its own "flavor" of euro is also neat; it makes for fun collecting, like U.S. state quarters.)

I like the idea of *no* common language for Europe. Citizens of the Union are encouraged to learn two languages besides their mother tongue; this results in a bit of redundancy in communications, but then again, a little redundancy is a good thing. Also, it's an elegantly egalitarian solution to the language question, much more so than other "solutions" I could name...

I *love* the idea of a Europe in which there is no more war, where differences are talked about, in pubs, pamphlets, and parliaments, and not allowed to fester in sulky silence. Just think about that for a second. For about as long as there has been a Europe, there has been war in Europe--but no longer. What a marvelous accomplishment that would be. The genius behind the arrangement is that it removes the *causes* for war. When everyone has opportunity, no one need feel want. When everyone has a voice, and uses it, no one need feel isolation. When I can speak your language, and you can speak mine; when I can visit your land, and you can visit mine, no one need feel mistrust, for what secrets can I keep from you?

It may well prove instructive (for those who have the inclination) to examine the parallels between this experiment and the American experiment. I think it would serve as a good reminder (or for some, a revelation) that American democracy is not the *only* viable form of democracy, and not the *only* "good" form of government. Rather than shunning such knowledge, we should embrace it, as it can only help to improve our own system, by exposing us to new data, new ideas, and new results.

So, what brought all this on? Well, mere days ago, the EU officially gave the go-ahead for Macedonia (or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, for you sticklers) to become an official candidate for membership. Macedonia joins Croatia and Turkey on the candidacy list. Let there be singing in the streets of Skopje; the dream of a united Europe comes one step closer to fruition.

***

Yes, I'm *still* reading Le Morte D'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory. I know I've spent about the past six months on it, but I haven't really been giving it my full attention. Nevertheless, I've gotten through five hundred pages of it, which is more than half, and the story, which frankly had been languishing, is starting to pick up again. Maybe if I discipline myself, I can have it finished by the new year.

But don't hold your breath on that... :-)

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Ibid

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