Saturday, March 20, 2004
It's the end of Lent Term as we know it, and I feel fine.
So, twenty weeks of lectures and classes down, two days at the beginning of summer term to go. That's it for classroom learning. In direct contrast to my reaction the first time I watched The Wizard of Oz, I am not sobbing that it's over: even though I'd like my favourite courses to keep going so I can keep learning cool shit, I'm looking forward to getting caught up on sleep and (this is sick, I know, my glee and anticipation) writing a whole bunch of essays and projects to be handed in by April 26, the first day of summer term. I'm also looking forward to reducing my dependence on the Tube -- I might get a bus pass instead of tube pass for April, because signalling errors and heightened security after the bombings in Madrid make for stressful transit underground.
April 28 I fly to Singapore and probably Thailand for 10 days for a much-needed break, then it's 2 exams and the summer project and writing the thesis. And then I'll be done, which means along with the essays I need to spend the term break figuring out what I want to be doing come September, and on which continent.
Anyway, blah blah blah. Last night the Operational Research and Decision Science students gathered at the Columbia Bar. Drink, drank, mildly drunk. From John, I learned about the existence of The Bayesian Songbook. I only sat in on one week of the Bayesian stats class, but was still amused and impressed by Seth's catchy description of the users of the songbook, "what, a choir of priors?"
Other nerdiness:
Whilst using the facilities at Columbia Bar, [name omitted to protect the guilty party] came up with a causal loop diagram for the system dynamics of intoxication and toxin excretion. Ex post facilities usage, he wrote it down. There's apparently A PARADOX!! about the links between alcohol consumed and drunkenness and toxins excreted. I think he was just buzzed, but I have the diagram safely filed in case he wants to write a paper about it.
By 9:30 I was home and watching the last episode of Sex and the City with two of the flatmates, my brother, and two of Future Thinktanker's sibs who are visiting. I think Carrie must have been overly influenced by the sad, sad music playing when she was in Paris, because otherwise there is NO REASON to be moping in Paris. None. Not even if you're dating Mikhail Baryshnikov and he's paying no attention do you.
I never realised Baryshnikov defected in Canada, or that he was Latvian. Which reminds me of a late-night conversation in a hostel in 1999 (after earlier-that-evening watching Notting Hill instead of going to a dance performance featuring Baryshnikov, because I had a viewing companion for the former who wasn't interested in attending the latter), about whether Latvia was the new Paris. Everyone present vehemently agreed NO, pink or orange or brown or turquoise may become the new black, but no destination can be the new Paris. Even though I'm sure Latvia's lovely.
I shall now go back to thinking about weightier matters, like whether society ought to be doing more, given the economic implications of falling birthrates, to support parents. (via Is it selfish not to have kids? at TPW) Phillip Longman's concluding paragraph:
In reality, both soldiering and nurturing children are vital forms of public service. One is a traditionally male calling and the other female, which may well explain why veterans enjoy a panoply of benefits and their own cabinet-level agency, while mothers don't. But in the long run, both roles are vital to a nation's survival, with the new realities created by aging and the deepening demand for human capital formation making successful parenting all the more so. A society that fails to recognize, much less honor, its debts to those who form the next generation may expect to vanish.I don't know about the second sentence -- it's much easier to identify and reward veterans than successful parents. So yes, that's what I'm going to think about for a bit.
