Quizbowl went quite well. The first half was really hard and we got a lot of questions wrong, but the second half was good! I think we got about 21 questions wrong out of 200.
The discussion in my lit class today was very interesting; it had to do with nihilism and I guess "the meaning of life," which made me start thinking quite seriously about the theme of the tension between what is meaningful and what is meaningless in our lives. I made the comment that if we are all just participating in a Great Distraction by indulging in simple pleasures and societal routines, what exactly are we distracting ourselves from? I also said that perhaps this means we sometimes overanalyze things too much, and that we should, as was the theme in Moby Dick's chapter "The Squeeze of the Hand" just enjoy the prosaic, the mundane, the ordinary in our lives, to which my teacher (who is like a veritable genius by the way) responded, "this coming from someone who probably thinks way too much about everything!" Touché, man, touché.
Also yesterday I went back to the lab to help out with the presentation that supposedly went on today, and I had a very strange experience... I had a weird moment wherein I was frantically trying to figure out a metaphor to explain in a simpler manner the definition of working memory, and then I realized, with a sensation of looking over my own shoulder in suspicion, that my brain was using working memory to try to define working memory… It was kind of a personal epiphany of how much of a stranger my own brain is to the conscious me, even though I technically knew that already from a scientific standpoint.
The above experience was recalled to me today when my teacher made that comment about what I had said, which I was actually in the process of realizing myself as I said the words... Strange thing, life is I guess.
And of course, Real Madrid's game against Auxerre just ended 4-0!! I believe it was our #13 Antonio Adán's debut when he came on for Dudek, and it was Pablo Sarabia's debut as well! I for one am very excited about giving the youth team members a chance to grow into the first team, and I'm also extremely happy for Karim Benzema for scoring a hat trick. Although Auxerre didn't exactly bring it, I hope this gives him much needed confidence as Pipita is gone for the while. He still sometimes falters in front of goal and wastes chances... But I believe in him!