Lost In Me

You may or may not know of a bizarre tradition at the White House, where every Thanksgiving the president is presented with a prize turkey, and the president "pardons'' this lucky turkey to live out the rest of its days in a retirement colony, instead of being stuffed and baked like many of its fellow turkeys. (Of course, the president then goes on to eat some other turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.) As I understand it, there are many turkeys which are groomed for the coveted position of National Thanksgiving Turkey, and the most well-behaved and sociable turkey is then selected to be presented to the national leader.

I couldn't help thinking, after reading about this, how nice it would have been if the current president had been this forgiving when he was the governor of Texas. I could see the mother of a Texan death row inmate, reading the same story, and thinking "Bush could pardon a turkey, but he wouldn't pardon my son?"

Talk about irony.

I've finally succumbed to illness, after watching everybody around me get sick first. I think it was the week before this one that did me in, as I had to work overtime to prepare for my trip to Georgia earlier this week. So, I've mostly been hibernating since coming back from Georgia on Wednesday night, in order to recuperate.

So it's very embarrassing walking around campus with Galwang, especially when in his sleep deprived stupor, he talks out loud about his pornographic preferences, and his late night internet research concerning the average size of male genitalia, as well the racial variation among female genitalia. And all this while passing by women who politely pretend not to hear.

And I thought my late night counterstrike was a bad way to waste time.

I ended up dropping statistical mechanics, after having done roughly two-thirds of the work required for the class, for though I am very good at playing the game of academic triage, it's time to admit that I don't learn a whole lot from playing that game. It's time to realize that learning the material from my courses is what's important, and that can only be done under a manageable course load.

Last night I had my last prelim for the semester, in mathematical physics. An easy way to gauge the difficulty of a test is to simply sit and listen to the sounds in the room during the exam. During an easy exam, all you hear is the earnest scribbling of the students around you. During a hard exam, there is less scribbling, and it is interspersed with the occasional loud sigh. There were many audible sighs during my prelim last night, which seems sad, because I started studying for it 5 hours before it began, and I found it to be quite easy.

jaun·dice (jônds, jän-)
n.

1. Yellowish discoloration of the whites of the eyes, skin, and mucous membranes caused by deposition of bile salts in these tissues. It occurs as a symptom of various diseases, such as hepatitis, that affect the processing of bile. Also called icterus.
2. A state or feeling of negativity or bitterness arising especially from envy or world-weariness.

Drew has taken to writing a novel about an Asian in America, titled Jaundice. You can find it here.

The annoying thing about international phone cards is that the data lines they connect to transmit audio data in half-duplex mode. This means that while you are talking, you will not be able to hear any comments that the other person makes. It is a great way for the international carriers to halve their expenses, since they only need to reserve half the bandwidth for each phone call as they would for full-duplex communication. And of course, this "feature" is not advertised along with the product.