One more for the road

I can't seem to stop making these animated gifs.


GIF made with the NYPL Labs Stereogranimator

Unfortunately, many of the gifs I have been making (and they only take a few seconds apiece) haven't been even this good.

One might be inclined to think that all of this gif making might be cutting into my study time.  Sadly, people thinking this would be correct (though this isn't to say that gif making has completely replaced studying today).

Cameron: 9
Neil: 0

Snow day?

As we were listening to the radio this morning we learned that the school children in the region (Kings and Annapolis counties) have been given a snow day.

So far things don't look too bad, but maybe they'll get worse?

Of course, given the latest satellite imagery (or at least give my reading of the latest satellite imagery) this seems a little unlikely (at least in the next few hours).

Unfortunately for the kids without school there isn't any snow on the ground and it's hovering around 0, otherwise this would be a perfect day for taking part in your favourite winter activity.

A Few Quick Notes 496

-After some early morning snow and slush today turned out to be a rather nice winter's day. Though it was cold this evening, the air was clear and the were sidewalks relatively dry.

-We managed to win our Ultimate game last night. This was a particularly impressive feat for two reasons. Firstly, because we were short females we had to pick one up from another team, which meant that we had to take a 7 point penalty. Secondly, even with our extra female player we only had two females, meaning that they didn't have any substitutes during the game. Hopefully we play as well next week.

(Update: Jeannette was upset that I did not mention that she was one of the two female player mentioned above. Both of these players played hard the entire game and score many of our points. Jeannette has suggested, and I agree, that she likely scored about one third of our points.)

-I have managed to do a fair bit of studying this weekend, which is good as my first comp is just around the corner.

-Our salad diet is still going strong. Furthermore, for the first time in my life I have also been doing a good job of integrating fruit into my diet. Actually, I may be over doing it on the fruit front, though this will likely come back into line now that one of the great citrus sales of the year has ended.

-I guess I should get back to work. The Durham Report awaits me.

Nothing but fun

This morning I awoke on the early side of things (it was at least early for me) so that I could start studying. Not surprisingly, by noon I had been studying for a while.

It is now now quite 2:00 PM and I have already had the pleasure of putting in a few good hours of work.

The upside of this is that even if I do nothing for the rest of the day (which isn't my plan) I won't feel as though the day has been wasted. The even better aspect of this situation is that as it is only 2:00 I still have many productive hours left.

I think I need to more consistently get up and get to work early.

A Few Quick Notes 491

-As has been standard so far this winter, today saw us get some rain and have temperatures hovering just above freezing. Talk about fun weather.

-As suggested by our last post, we had salads with our dinner tonight. This means that everyone had at least one salad today and some of us had two. It should also be noted none of us over-indulged in the main course, which was chili. Of course, all of this salad consumptions means that I am likely going to have to make a run to the carrot store tomorrow to pick up a few more carrots and some celery (which happens to be on sale this week).

-I have been doing a fair bit of studying today, though I guess I could have been a little more diligent.

-It seems that there is some new graffiti on the cement wall across from my bedroom window. I guess none of us noticed this going up yesterday.



Unfortunately, this new addition to the wall, at least in my opinion, isn't as nice as what is to be found under it. That the graffiti has taken a turn for the worse is unfortunate as I have to spend a fair bit of my time looking at it. I guess at this point I wouldn't mind if the building decided to remove everything and start from scratch.

-Oh, and I should note that in addition to increasing my salad consumption I am trying to put a little more emphasis on doing more chin-ups, a pursuit that fell by the wayside this summer shortly after a accidental self-inflicted rib injury.

A Few Quick Notes 484

-Today was an all around strange day. I woke up to learn that in several parts of town the night had been so rough that there were a number of power outages (supposedly including our street even though this didn't actually seem to be the case). Later in the day we had the pleasure of experiencing periods of intense rain followed by sunny periods and heavy wind. Fortunately, I managed to avoid some of the worst patches of weather while walking to and from school.

-I had the pleasure of attending a political science Ph.D. defence this afternoon. Though the defence wasn't particularly short (maybe 2 or 3 hours), it was well done and not the least bit unpleasant (as was the only other defence I have attended). After the defence I join the successful Ph.D candidate, her family, the external examiner, and faculty for a few drinks and some celebrations.

-Apparently Tumblr went down for a few hours. Had it not been an event in and of itself I probably wouldn't have jumped on the bandwagon and been aware of this generation-making event. I just look forward to the day when I can tell the next generation about this earth-shattering event. Like the New York black-out of 2003, kids of the next generation just won't believe such a turn of events possible.

-I should probably try to head to bed shortly so that I can get cracking early tomorrow morning.

A Few Quick Notes 465

-Wow, we have had some really bad weather these past few days. Yesterday was incredibly windy and rainy, and, in our part of town, may have actually been worse that Hurricane Earl (though we didn't lose power). Today we were just stuck with heavy rain for several hours and then grey skies for the rest of the day. Sadly, tomorrow doesn't look as though it will be much of an improvement.

-This week wasn't a particularly successful Ultimate week for me. On Tuesday I played on Jeannette's intramural team. We were slaughtered, and Jeannette managed to sustain a minor leg injury when hit by two opposing players near the end of the game. On Wednesday, our regular team was decimated. Hopefully this upcoming week isn't so bad.

-I have been working hard these past few days. Aside from readings in a few books that I have completed throughout the day, I just quickly read (and enjoyed) two articles. I guess I should try to do a bit more tonight. And whether I like it or not, tomorrow is also going to be heavy (as are the rest of the days of the week, month, and year).

-One of the aforementioned articles happened to be about the implementation of multiculturalism policies, which makes it pretty funny that just before I learned that that would be the subject of the article I happened upon an article about Germany declaring multiculturalism to be a failure. Ironically, the work that I read specifically cited Germany as a country without a real multiculturalism policy, making this article all the more interesting.

-Back to work.

Well put

Check out Rebecca's recent post. I couldn't have said it better myself.

A Few Quick Notes 456

-Though today was mostly overcast it really wasn't that bad of a day. The temperatures remained reasonable all day, and, most importantly, the rain stayed away. Hopefully we will be so lucky tomorrow.

-This morning at about 7:00 AM I was abruptly awoken by a loud snap. A mouse trap in my bedroom had been sprung. When I got up to investigate the matter I learned that not only had the trap been sprung, but that it had been engaged by a hapless mouse. The mouse, not surprisingly, was dead.

This makes the second mouse that we have trapped in less than a week. I wonder if this means that we have a 'mouse problem' in our apartment?

Also, it seems that my various trap schemes of last night were completely ineffective. Somehow what I thought was a series of inescapable obstacles was actually easily avoidable. Or maybe the mice are smart and more agile than most normal mice.

-I had my second class this year. While I have taken this class twice before I learned that it has now been somewhat re-imagined. The consequence of this re-imagining is that I will now have more new readings to do than I had last year. On the whole, though it means more work for me, I think that the new version of the course is an improvement and will be better.

-I guess I should get down to work.

Back at it

Today marks the beginning of another new school year at Dalhousie.

Hooray!

I marked the start of the new year by auditing a seminar course.

I will continue my beginning of term celebrations tomorrow my assisting my supervisor the launch of one of her courses. I presume that this first contact with undergraduate students will actually feel like more of a start than sitting in a room with five other grad students and a prof did today.

A Few Quick Notes 453

-Today was a steadily overcast day. From the time I awoke in the morning until now things have been consistently grey and calm, but not quite rainy. The consistency of the weather, even if it hasn't been nice, has been impressive.

-The Political Science beginning-of-term social was this evening. Much to my surprise, though I didn't expect to have a bad time, I really had a good time. Unfortunately, because of a headache I have had all day I wasn't able to take advantage of the open bar and had to stick to water.

-School things will start in earnest tomorrow as that will be when I will be attending my first class of the year. This class, like the only other class I will be taking, is one that I will be auditing. That I will be auditing these classes probably means that they won't have quite the same intensity kick that most classes with marked components have.

-Our Ultimate play-off session will be taking place this weekend. Some how we have been scheduled to start playing at 9:00 AM on Saturday, a real bummer of a time. Hopefully this doesn't cause too many problems in terms of attendance.

-I am exhausted.

A Few Quick Notes 421

-Though I worried we might have some precipitation yesterday it seems that we seemed escaped unscathed. Unfortunately, we weren't quite so luck today. Not only has it been overcast all day, there have also been a number of periods of rain/precipitation.

-On Saturday Neil and Rebecca noticed that there were protestors walking around Cornwallis park. On Sunday I saw quite a number of protestors in the same location.

At the time we couldn't quite figure out why there were so many protestors. Eventually it became clear that much of this activity was likely related to G8 meetings that were scheduled to take place nearby.



Early this afternoon Neil and I tried to head to Pier 21 to see if we could see the protestors in person, but we wimped out once we saw how far we would have to walk through the rain to see them.

-Last night I had the misfortune of encountering a rather unpleasant bathroom fail.

As I was walking into the bathroom at the library I happened to pass an exiting janitor just as I encountered a rather overpowering stench. The janitor was trying to tell me something about someone "doing the South Park episode." Just as he said "it's not too bad now" I caught a glimpse of the middle urinal and noticed that someone had defecated in it. Classy (almost as classy as me telling the internet about it).

-Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking to one of my profs about arranging a meeting about my upcoming comprehensive exams. While we were talking we somehow ended up on the topic of political biography. She highly recommended a multi-volume biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson by Robert Caro. Anyway, I am hoping to have something of a dent in at least the first volume by the time of my meeting in about two weeks' time.

-Yesterday I noticed that my banana plant, which has been growing quite rapidly of late, has sprouted a new pup.



This time I am going to try to leave the pup alone until it is actually large enough to transplant (instead of just killing it by transplanting it too early).



-We are hoping to get some Settlers in tonight. Should be fun.

A Few Quick Notes 419

-For the second day in a row, after about five days of grey, we have blue skies. Though there is some suggestion that this may take a turn for the worse later today, I am hoping that we will be able to avoid precipitation until at least about midnight.

-I think that my Roll Up the Rim to Win record for this year 5/23, though it may have been 5/25 (at one point I was given an extra cup). Though this may not seem like much, I did much better that I should have and much better than I have done in past years. The major problem with my winnings this year were that they tended to be donuts instead of more useful prizes. In the end I think I gave away most of my winnings.

-Yesterday I was able to submit my exam marks, meaning that I have now (to the best of my knowledge) completed my grading for the semester. Though it hadn't really set in as of last night, I think I am now starting to feel a little more relaxed. One of the things that I seem to have learned from my recent grading experiences is that cursive is almost always more difficult to read than printing. Why school insist on teaching students cursive is beyond me. What might be gained in speed is certainly lost in legibility.

-I guess I should explain my noticeable internet silence of the past few weeks. It seems that I was engulfed in something a perfect storm of time commitments. First I had to kill of a number of school related tasks (mainly assignments and studying for an exam), while doing this I also had to deal with a variety of grading and RA responsibilities. Finally, social commitments, particularly that two friends stayed with us for 4 nights, managed to consume most of my remaining time. The time I had to devote to the internet was thus compromised (and because of this I am sure you were all saddened).

-Last night I had arranged to get together with Peter and just hang out for a while. After making these plans I learned that there was to be a conflicting poli sci grad student event that I felt obliged to attend. Peter agreed to take one for the team and accompany me to this event.

We finally arrived at the destination at about 8:30 (an hour and a half after the event was to have started) only to discover that the house appeared relatively dark. After a few minutes of hemming and hawing we finally decided to commit ringing the door-bell. Almost as soon as the host opened the door (maybe it was the look of surprise on her face) it became clear that the event was not tonight. Apparently the event was actually scheduled for tonight. I felt like a bit of an idiot, though also somewhat relieved as it meant that I didn't have to participate in a social engagement that I was entirely thrilled/sufficiently energized to attend. As Peter and I were walking away I suggested it was a 'party win.' (I should be clear that the reasons I didn't really want to attend relate to my level of exhaustion and not the host or other guests).

The best part, at least according me, was that when we got home I checked my email and found that the host had actually sent me emails indicating that it was on Friday (she even used the word 'Friday'). Of course, I don't know how to bring this up to her without sounding like a jerk, so I guess I will wear the shame of showing up on the wrong day for a while.

-Tonight, instead of attending the aforementioned potluck, I will be attending a retirement party for one of the professors in my department. The only problematic aspect of this event is that it is being hosted at a location somewhat far away from the centre of the city. So far I have been able to secure a ride to the event. I am hoping to arrange a ride back at while at the party, though if I fail on this front the back up plan is to walk the 4 km to the nearest bus stop. Can't wait.

-It seems that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador accidentally expropriated an old paper mill. This just seems like something that should be so hard to do that it should never happen accidentally. This just seems to provide more evidence that this whole expropriation thing has been an ill-conceived mess since day one.

A Few Quick Notes 417

-We have some really beautiful weather recently. While today wasn't as warm as it has been, it was certainly still a very beautiful day.

-I am now 4/20, which might be restated as 1/5, in this year's Roll Up the Rim to Win contest. So it seems that I am actually doing much better than expected. I would have to drop to 4/36 to be where one would expect to be, and then below that to be doing worse than average. So maybe this year hasn't been quite as much of a wash as I was thinking it would be.

-I am not sure quite what it is, but our post Underlining Fail seems to be quite frequently hit with spam comments. Though we have more of these in recent months than we have ever had before, this one post seems to attract the majority of them. I am always somewhat teased when I see that we new comment only to find out that we have once again been spammed.

-For the past two nights I have had my sleep disrupted by what I presume is a mouse in the wall between the two bedrooms in our apartment. The ruckus was so loud last night that both Rebecca and I were basically unable to sleep for more than an hour at around 4:00 AM. The worst part of all of this is that it almost sounded as though the little guys were chewing/tugging on some of the wiring in the wall.

Tonight I reported the problem to the superintendent's husband, who indicated that he would call an exterminator tomorrow (or throw down a few glue traps if he had them). Both Rebecca and I are really hoping that we end up with the exterminator rather than glue traps (which won't be anywhere close to the problem).

-We are down to our final few bottles of Club Soda. Apparently 56 liters of Club Soda doesn't last all that long.

-Today I had my last class for the term. I still have a few things to take care of before my 'summer' starts. Of course, it being summer means that instead of classes to attend each day I will have reading to attend to. Should be fun.

-One of my department's senior professors retired last Summer, though is only now being thrown out of his office. To prepare for the move he is getting rid of many of his books. I was able to pick up a few that should be relevant to my thesis research, as well as a few that relate to personal interests. The most noteworthy of my picks, at least from the standpoint of my place of birth, was Smallwood: The Unlikely Revolutionary by Richard Gwyn (I am presently part way through Gwyn's biography of Macdonald). Oh, I also picked up a copy of Creighton's biography of Macdonald (and to think that just yesterday I had a conversation with a friend in which I claimed to be better at reducing my acquisition tendencies than I had been in the past).

A Few Quick Notes 411

-Today, while not as nice as the past few days, was pretty OK until some time this evening. Unfortunately, things are expected to get even worse tomorrow (meaning rainier), though I am still holding out a little hope that the forecast is as inaccurate as usual.

-I am now 2/9 with my Roll Up the Rim to Win cup. I am starting to feel a little like Chuck Knoblauch, in that that I am just not doing what doing what needs to be done. I keep missing my mark.

-I have recently been so busy tipping back diet passionfruit pop that I completely forgot how refreshing a nice glass of ice water can be. In case you too have forgotten how nice a glass of ice water can be and are curious the answer is great and refreshing. Glasses ice water are so good it is no wonder that they are my favourite drink and the one drink I would take with me to a desert island (assuming I am ever given such a choice).

-In class today we were talking about international development NGOs and their relationship to missionary work when the professor asked the class "Have NGOs assumed a missionary position?" After I broke the silence and laughed a few of my classmates joined in before the professor caught on and shamefacedly rephrased the question. Though I know my father might spend years crafting such a line, I am pretty sure that this one was spur of the moment and considered a misstep by the professor.

-I harvested some of my tobacco seeds today. I still have to separate some of the seed pods from the seed, but it is already clear that I have thousands and thousands of seeds. I have no idea what I might do with thousands and thousands of tobacco seeds.

-There is an awesome butter sale at the grocery store this week. I am hoping to head by tomorrow and pick up a few pounds.

-A few weeks ago I decided to "soften my image" by growing a beard. I was hoping that a beard would draw attention away from my super-short haircut and allow me not to look so intense. Generally I think that this worked, though it is kind of hard to say. Anyway, my beard was getting kind of long and my hair had grown out enough that I decided that I could go back to being beardless and would likely not look to intense so I got rid of my beard this morning. I generally think it was a good move.

A Few Quick Notes 409

-Today was another beautiful day. In contrast to many of past few nights, the temperature seems to be remaining above zero, though the temperature drop was still about 10 degrees, maybe even as high as 11.

-I am now down to 2/8 with this year's Roll Up the Rim to Win contest. Apparently playing for Jess only got me through the initial days of the competition, I will now likely need to find some other cause to reinvigorate myself (though this doesn't mean that I won't also carry original burden).

-A few days ago Neil called our internet service provider about our sluggish internet connection. After a few minutes he learned that the problem is that due to an 'administrative error' we had been switched to a slower service some number of months ago. Apparently we are now to get some kind of discount, though I am not sure if we have been told exactly what this will entail.

Of course the good news is that we now have a much faster internet connection that doesn't seem to disconnect as frequently. The bad news is that we have once again confirmed that we are so lazy that we will wait months before dealing with an obvious problem.

-Maybe two weeks ago Neil and I were grocery shopping when we happened to come across some discount passionfruit flavoured pop. Much to my surprise, I was quite taken with the $1.98 product and decided to buy a dozen cans of the diet variety. After just a few days we were out and I was jonesing for more.

Yesterday night we went back and bought another dozen (along with more traditional groceries). Sadly, I pounded back five of the dozen cans this afternoon and evening. At this rate I am likely going to need to re-stock by tomorrow afternoon (that is if I want to re-stock before I run out).

-I am in the midst of preparing an essay for submission on Monday. While things are a bit rough at the moment I think that I have at least finally settled on the basic outlines of the structure (a development that was a long time coming). Hopefully I will be able to fashion something approximating a first draft tomorrow.

-Tonight all three of us went upstairs to have dinner at our neighbour/friend's apartment. We had a really great stir-fry for dinner and then a sticky toffee sponge pudding (that I prepared) for desert. It was a very pleasant affair.

-A few weeks ago this neighbour/friend and I decided to jointly acquire a seed starter kit (basically mini-green house with peat pellets) and together get a jump on the growing season. With a few of the seeds that I already had and a few more that I ordered from Vesey's (they have great seed catalogues) we managed to take care of the planting last Saturday. When I went up tonight, much to my surprise, I learned that most of the seeds we planted, including most of the tomatoes, have already sprouted and are quite perceptibly plants. This early and vigorous sprouting has really helped me get pumped about our upcoming container gardening season.

Hopefully at some point in the coming days I will be able to take a few minutes and explain what is going on plantwise and what I expect to happen in the near future.

-As many of you likely know, yesterday was St. Patrick's Day. Though I am not a particularly keen celebrator or St. Patrick's Day I did end up visiting a local establishment yesterday evening. I decided to head out to this particular event because a fellow political science grad student and former Nova Scotia premier Rodney MacDonald were to be performing together. While at the event Neil and I ran into a few other political science grad students, as well as my supervisor. All in all, I think it is safe to say that we had a good time and would likely consider heading back next year if a similar slate of performers happened to be scheduled to appear.

A Few Quick Notes 392

-Today was another rather chilly day, though nowhere near as cold as it was earlier this week. While there were a few snowflakes today, if my memory serves me correctly, there really wasn't any accumulation to talk of.

-We had a nice tofu and chicken stir-fry for dinner tonight.

-I need to try to go to bed early tonight so that I can wake up early tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, I really don't see how this is going to turn out well in the end.

-While I was sitting in class this afternoon it became apparent that for some reason just about everyone in class was out of it, even those of us who tend to be quite active and participate frequently. This was particularly strange as I am quite confident that many of us keeners completed the assigned readings, so it wasn't as though we weren't ready. The most likely explanation is that many of us were tired as a result of working late last night to complete papers that were due during today's class.

-I have some marking and research work that I really need to work on tomorrow. Hopefully my modified schedule won't mess me up too much.

-Word on the street is that Neil is a little dissatisfied with a few of my recent posts. He thinks that they were a little to self-referential and void of content. While I think that he is likely correct, they did meet the minimum requirements to qualify for the blog-off, which we at least in part suggested by him, so I don't feel too bad about them. Furthermore, as some of us may recall, he managed to squeak to victory by making a series of such posts in the dying moments of last year's competition.

Blog-off Score

Neil: 0
Cameron: 11

A Few Quick Notes 383

-Though yesterday was rather nasty, today really wasn't too bad at all. Aside from the snow and slush that is on the streets as a result of yesterday's storm the main problem with today was the generally grey skies that persisted through the sunlit hours.

-At Neil's suggestion I tried to take a quick time-lapse clip of the storm as it was progressing. Un/fortunately we started the recording process just as things were beginning to die down. By the time I was finished capturing photos not only had the storm stopped, but the sun had also set (but aspects have been cut from the video below).



[Embedded Video]

I also tried to take a few photos, though I am sure that the video does a better job of conveying the message (what little message there is).



-We had our first ultimate game of the new year last night. While I wasn't looking forward to the game as the time to catch the bus approached, I had a good time once I was there. While we lost by a pretty wide margin, I think that we did relatively well considering our competition. Unfortunately, near the end of the game I ran into a brick wall while attempting to catch a pass. Luckily I think I will manage to escape the encounter with nothing more than a bruised elbow (and hopefully a sense that future encounters of this sort should be avoided).

-When I returned from St. John's I rearranged some of the plants in our apartment. A few that were on their last legs were ditched, while a few others were moved to locations that more appropriately suited their size and likely growth patterns.



As you can see, most of the plants in my bedroom window are still tobacco plants, though there are at least a few other varieties (including the banana plant, the bay tree, the thyme plant, and a rather unsightly pepper plant).

Given the rapid growth of my tobacco plants I have continued to amass a collection of dried tobacco leaves. The pile is now so large that I am having problems storing it. Eventually I should probably consider putting them in some kind of container with a tight seal, but for the moment I think that they will just stay on my shelf in a pile.



-I think I have figured out which courses I will be taking this term, though I guess things could still change between now and the end of the week.

What has been frustrating about this process is that Dalhousie schedule a working day after the New Year's day holiday but before classes start. Such a day would allow faculty, staff, and students to make arrangements regarding classes before they have actually started. I am sure that the current set up leads to mass confusion, especially among those students starting for the first time at Dalhousie in January.

The other neat effect is that it forces faculty members to go in on the weekend before classes start. Rebecca and Neil went to the Math building today and felt that there were almost as many faculty members there today as there would be on a normal week day.

-Shortly after we returned to Halifax we rented Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day. Sadly, it was quite a disappointment. Not only was the movie not as good as the first one, it wasn't until the second half that they really even started showing the recognizable Halifax shots (some of which were from about a block away from our apartment) that I so enjoy now that I live in Halifax. So I guess I would suggest that if you really need two Trailer Park Boys movies in your collection stick to the original black and white film from the late-1990s and the first properly filmed and released movie.

A Few Quick Notes 377

-Today was a little on the cool side. At the moment the reported temperature is -6. Not surprisingly, I get the sense that things are a little cooler in other parts of the country. While we had a little bit of snow a few days ago, there is really not much to show for it at the moment.

-My friend Peter, a new Dal library student, is crashing with us for a night or two before he heads back to St. John's for Christmas. A few minutes ago he asked me a few questions about Dialog, a database aggregation service that is used in the library context. This really reminded me of this time of year in 2006 when I too was working on a Dialog project at the end of my first term of library school. As Dialog uses a command drive search interface it isn't particularly surprising that I wasn't as helpful as I might have been in December 2006 (I remember the concepts, just not the specific commands).

-I have been really cutting back on caffeine for the past two days. I was starting to notice that I was consuming so much that I was reducing my level of productivity. One of the major problems was that I was unable to get to sleep at a reasonable time, which meant that I was throwing my schedule more and more out of whack and not really getting more done.

Anyway, so far it looks as though the decision has been a good one and I may try to stick to my current low level of consumption (a liter of coffee a day).

-I came across some rather good news recently. It seems that my former roommate in Montreal has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, which he will be taking up in October. While I have been incredibly pleased when other friends have been awarded scholarships and fellowships I think that none have made me happier than hearing about this award. I really think that they picked a great candidate.

-I should get back to work, I have all kinds of it to do.

2004: Summer of Logic

A few years ago, I think it may have been the Summer of 2004, Neil and I took an undergraduate logic class (taught as a philosophy course) together, along with a few other math people. Not surprisingly, given their previous encounters with much of the material, most of the math guys did quite well with the material. Given my proximity to the math guys, and my unwillingness to be bested by too wide a margin by Neil, I also did pretty well with most of the content.

Unfortunately, many of the others in the class didn't have such an easy time with the material. One girl, try as she might, could never seem to make it through the practice questions without a handful of questions (most of which demonstrated her complete failure to comprehend the material). Another few also drew attention to themselves in a variety of ways, though one student in particular stood out, eventually getting the nickname Humpty-Dumpty as he thought words should be understood in terms of that which they were being used to refer.

Just moments ago I finally came across the passage (though I had heard the story paraphrased by the prof.) in Through the Looking Glass that gave rise to this guy's nickname. So here it is, the quote that was the reason for Humpty-Dumpty's nickname:

"When I use a word," said Humpty-Dumpty in a scornful tone, "it means what I want it to mean, neither more nor less."

I am sure all involved would be pleased to know that Neil and I still refer to Humpty-Dumpty all these years later.