Two Fatigue Jokes

I stayed up until 4:30 (that's AM) finishing a paper, and woke up at 9:30 to edit it. I used up all my energy going to classes, drank a gross protein juice drink before teaching French for two hours, and then came home to take a short nap before getting up to do some work and go to rehearsal. The work bit never happened, because my brain has such low functioning power at the moment.

On the bright side, I was tired enough today that EVERYTHING seemed funny. I even made up two jokes.

• One joke, you can tell people. I promise, it's not sophisticated at all.

Q: What do musical German chickens say?
A: Bach Bach Bach

It's not even funny. But when I made it up, it was hilarious.

• This one, you have to look at. And it's slightly more sophisticated, and funnier.

(And yes, I realize that it looks like I missed by a bit and made a secant... just ignore that.)

That, in case you were wondering, is what I was doing instead of working for the past hour. Well, not the entire hour-- I also checked my e-mail, ate some oatmeal (more about oatmeal when I post the big long post of random stuff) and played cards on my computer.

Post coming soon...

I promise I will update about my life as soon as I have time. At the moment, I expect that to be Monday night. So you'll just have to wait.

But in the meantime (or the nicetime, if you will), enjoy this amazing collection of Simpsons linguistic jokes.

Conditioning... check.

So once upon a time, I was a little (well, six foot tall but younger) freshman taking Foundations of Mathematics, a course that teaches a bit of linear algebra and all the proof techniques you need to go on to higher math. Proof class. Approximately three hours of homework every day for four months. A LOT of homework. Tons of proofs.

For years, I've had a habit of watching movies while doing my homework. It's a way of putting something innocuous in the background that I can mostly ignore, that helps me to focus-- it cuts down on other distractions. (Probably mostly because I don't surf the internet while watching movies...)

When I was taking Foundations, I began a semester-long James Bond marathon, where I watched every James Bond movie, in chronological order. And then, since they were all blurred in my memory and mixed with mathematical theorems, I watched them all again. It became kind of a tradition: watch a James Bond movie, work on my proofs, etc.

Then towards the end of the semester, I realized that I could remove nervousness before Foundations tests by watching fifteen minutes of a James Bond movie before heading over. They put me in the right frame of mind. I decided that I'd somehow conditioned myself to do proofs best while watching action movies, and continued watching James Bond up until the exam... which I aced.

Fast forward.

This semester, I'm taking Logic. It's more informal logic than I'd done before, but last week we started doing proofs... right around when my current insatiable craving for James Bond movies began. Coincidence? I THINK NOT. I've found myself putting off my logic homework until I can go to the library and get more movies. I honestly do proofs better, understand logic better, and work more efficiently when I have a James Bond movie on in the background. It's kind of ridiculous. Conditioning at its finest.

Unusual input: currently watching Iron Man and Enchanted, depending on what homework I'm working on, and reading Colonel Sun in addition to Russian Harry Potter.

Milestone!

Today I.... STOOD ON MY TOES!!!!

For the past seven months, I haven't been able to run, stand on the toes of my left foot, walk super-long distances without taking a painkiller, etc. I had to switch habits so that when I kneel in church I put my right leg down first to keep my toes straight. I now instinctively stand on only five tippy-toes when I have to reach for something. But today I stood on ALL of them! Woohoo!

They still hurt early in the morning or when it's particularly cold or rainy, and it still hurts to run, and they don't have full range of motion, but I declare my not-fully-broken toes healed. (Despite the ER doc who said, "They should feel fine after a week.")


Unusual Input:
Watched The Spy Who Loved Me and Iron Man
Finished Catch Me if you Can and restarted reading Гарри Поттер и Философский Камень (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in Russian)

Other than that, the past few days have been homework, homework, homework. Plus several hours of baking for an SAI bake sale, and then several hours of selling baked goods at an SAI bake sale.