(no subject)
The traffic home today was ridiculously bad, because two trucks had collided and rotated in the process to jam up more than two whole lanes, meaning we were literally creeping home at snail's pace. 3 km in 50 min! I think I could walk faster than that. So I was sitting there in the car listening to this really creepy broadcast on the radio. Well, the subject wasn't at all scary and was very interesting- the women of Palestine I believe, but it was a dramatization and they just had to put in those creepy echo-y voices you always hear on discovery channel supernatural-related documentaries. Which got me wondering, since when did it have to be that supernatural voices sounded like that in the first place?! I'm no physics student, but shouldn't it be that the very state of being supernatural implies an ability overcome physical sorts of barriers, such as air at the very least? I guess the usual justification is, oh, there's a long empty tunnel linking this world with whatever world, and when you say something in such a place it echoes and sounds warped therefore this spooky ethereal voice should follow these rules guiding the travel of sound but practically speaking it is completely ungrounded. But nevertheless very creepy. Urgh.
PPE lecture was called off today, so I found Rebecca in the library and set out to spend the hour productively organizing my essay in anticipation of a Very Hectic Weekend. I did get what I wanted to do done, but not before I had a good read of the nice carrel I was occupying. It occurred to me that, for some reason, people seem to harbor rather vicious sentiments towards strangers (or, perhaps more specifically, fellow table-vandalizers). While I was rather moved by the idea of so many people occupying this same little booth at so many points in time and many leaving so many words/parts of themselves/their ink/the thoughts running through their brains at those precise moments behind on this singularly unspectacular little wooden table in the corner of the second floor of a library...etc, it was in general rather disheartening to observe that most of these indelible marks had a profanity-appearance frequency of about 90%, and mostly consisted of rude or bigoted and generally plain nasty quips attacking the most random things. Particularly memorable:
Vandalizer 1: "I want a boyfriend. Any suggestions?"
Vandalizer 2: "My dog's free. Interested?"
Like what the hell. Maybe I am becoming a priggish old granny, but I simply don't see the point of being downright mean or spouting vulgarities for no apparent purpose. Because you can? But why would you?
Anyway. Today was a pretty good day. I'm always happy when Thursdays go well, since when they don't they're nearly unbearable with their sheer length and all. In PPE tute we had a pretty fun conversation about how to maximize the utility/ happiness creating potential of $1000000 (e.g. invest in infrastructure or... pay your way through college lol) and how you can really define happiness/ standard of living, but I guess the best part was when M came over to our table and found the copy of Time I'd bought with this year's 100 most influential people, opened it and flipped to the page with... Lady Gaga and her ignited breasts. After some intense discussion and debate, we reached the somewhat unexpected conclusion that, despite looking rather absurd and alarming and downright weird upon first impression, ignitable breasts could actually be pretty damn useful.
Regarding the 100 most influential list, I actually thought it was a little... obscure. Taylor Swift? Robert Pattinson?? And then there was this one that was very sweet, about a vegetable market vendor in central Taiwan who, despite her meager salary managed to donate extremely large generous amounts to various charities across the country (or, er, to be more politically correct- province). I can see that she is indeed an awesome role model and no doubt is probably celebrated in Taiwan for her selflessness and generosity and even heroism etc, but where does that bring her into the ranks of '100 most influential people in the world'? I am really having my doubts about this thing now.
Turns out, I am starting to have a lot of doubts about a lot of things that I used to take for granted, and I'm actually feeling a little... insecure and scared and uncomfortable. Oh well. I guess it's just a phase.
Besides, now is no time to worry about it! Re the Very Hectic Weekend, I think it would be a good idea for me to make a little list of this weekend's...
-Write Calculus test 1
-Write answer key to Calc test 1
-9 hours work, plus net 2+hours transport
-Rehearsal on Sunday morning, concert at 2.30 (And apparently I have to skip the night one because of lack of transport home. Not being able to drive is making me feel ridiculously dependent. I really need to do something about this arghh!)
-French oral- translate J's script, practise
-PPE ESSAY (incl sifting through Large Pile of Library Books)
-Usual readings: PPE, Econs
-Last week's Econs hw
-This week's Econs hw
And that's not the comprehensive list! But it's enough to tell me that if there's one thing I should be doing, it's scooting off this place. So it's off to math world for me!