Flashes of Panic

My brain is toast. I have about five posts I want to write, but they’re all too long.

• Finals: It’s all over but the gradin’. I’ve been neck-deep since Sunday night; I’m short on sleep and haven’t been to the grocery store for so long that scurvy is starting to be a legitimate concern. Today I shaved and got a haircut so I’d look a bit less like a shipwreck survivor.

• Academics: I am, based on what my professors, an average student at best, and my math background is deficient. (This is not news.) However, I am in great demand as a TA; Professor γ was counting on having me another semester, but apparently while Professor β doesn’t want me in her research group, she does want me as a TA… and the department chair thinks I’ll be most useful with neither of them. (It looks like I will be both TAing and doing a Masters’ project in the spring with yet another professor, who I’ve mentioned before but I will now officially dub Professor Σ for brevity.)

• Apparently the University has had some small national notoriety in the past few days due to some so-called satire published in the campus conservative rag which some think crossed the racism line. I haven’t read the inflammatory text in question, and I think while there’s nothing wrong with holding the responsible authors and editors up to the ridicule of the University community—or, at the very least, explaining why their biases are wrong rather than simply chastising them for holding them—I also think that multiple public responses from the President’s office both overstates the importance of the publication in question, and lowers the President’s office. The editors in question are in a hole; let ‘em figure out for themselves when to stop digging.

• Racing: I will be at BU all weekend. Saturday morning I’m running a 3,000m on the track (I need to get out my old college logs and see if I even have a PR at that distance) and apparently that afternoon I’ll be in a relay or two over at the pool. (My team is looking for a good finish at the SCM meet.) Sunday I’m swimming 400m and 200m free, and more relays if I can still stand on the blocks without shaking at that point. Word is there’s wireless in the pool, too!

Now Playing: Boat from Let’s Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later On Tonight by Marah

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