8: That dizzy feeling when you think existentially

So I'm sitting here thinking about math and I start thinking that it really doesn't mean anything, that maybe the whole species could have evolved without thinking in numbers at all. Like rats, or maybe unlike rats, maybe in some extremely sophisticated way that we cannot conceive of. Maybe we could have developed as creatures who intuit quantity and never have a reason to look any deeper. Maybe we could have obsessed over language and found the most truth in how we express words, or in the science of motion, but I feel like built into our academia is the idea that mathematics is absolute truth. Ok, so there are idiots who don't get it, sometimes even professors in other fields, who say "but what if we found out 2+2=5, wouldn't that be crazy?" as though 2+2=4 is just a theory and we are only pretty sure it is true, as though 4 is not explicitly defined to be the sum of 2 and 2. It makes me want to kick them, shred their diplomas and move to a part of the country where academics don't smoke so much pot. Does such a place exist?
I am getting off topic. What I was trying to get at is that, we have discovered absolute truth through mathematics, when really the study of logic is bordering on philosophy, it is conceivable to me that maybe we could have come at it from a different direction.
But this is also off topic, what I was trying to demonstrate is that sometimes when I start to think about math, or anything, too hard my mind wanders to the reality of the world. We are just floating on this huge hunk of rock through endless space, through endless time. We evolved from nothing and the fact that we are aware of ourselves and aware of our extreme surroundings in unprecedented and unexplained.
I start to feel as though time is meaningless. There is so much of it that my life is over already. How can I live in the moment when there is no moment. This instant is 0% of my life, but at the same time, my life is 0% of all time.
I start to feel dizzy. I feel how my corporeal form is barely here. How my mind almost feels like it is floating somewhere. My body feels clumsy and light. I imagine this is what dying feels like. I imagine that I am so close to the truth of the universe, enlightenment, the way beyond everything which seems so trivial. When I think that I worried about how much we spent on groceries this week! What does it matter? If we spend all of our money on cheerios, if we starve to death, if we steal the groceries, it doesn't matter! Then I become afraid of myself, I think that I am evolving into something that does not live by human morals and I come back. I try and breath. I take a walk. I blog.

7: Silent letters in Egyptian names

So I don't think I have to start here, but I will.
The ancient Egyptian alphabet was different than ours. Here is a cute site that talks about how Egyptian names work. Here are some ancient Egyptian names:

• Tutankhamun, pronounced "toot in common." You know, the way Tutankamun would be pronounced. I am not going to debate the use of "u" instead of "oo" or anything, because some linguist knows what they are doing, but I don't think they are doing anything with that "h." Go ahead. Try to pronounce the "h."
• Horus-Netjerikhet. Again. Go ahead. Try and pronounce all of those letters. This guy's name can also be spelled Dsr, or Djoser, or pretty much any other way you feel like. Look it up. The list goes on and on.
• Serekh and Sekhemkhet, again with the "h," but now you must concede any hope that it affects the way the "a" is pronounced.
• Ptah, pronounced "Pitah" Ok, so I can see why they wouldn't want to carve an extra letter into stone, but these days we are talking about hitting one more key on a key board when typing this guys name. If we are willing to type out the 17 key monstrosity up there, why does this guy not rate the time to type an "i."
• Nakhtnebtepnefer. I'll stop there.

Thing is, there is no reason we need to have such crazy spellings for these names. The modern spelling of these names is, well, modern. Someone read the hieroglyphics less than 200 years ago and then wrote down his best approximation of the name in his own alphabet. This alphabet is not perfect, but it has an only slightly stupid list of rules. None of these rules say "and every 3rd letter you must have an 'h'." or "consonant Tourettes for all!"
Ok, maybe they have trouble writing a sound that ancient Egyptians used but we have long since forgotten, but I cannot believe that this is the case when they write "khtn" up there. Something is being pronounced that is not written or something is written that is not pronounced. For that guys sake, I hope the latter.

6: dehydrated skim milk

Milk, I learned in science class is just small beads of oil suspended in water. I was fine with this at the time, but at some point it began to really bug me because in my mom's basement is a box of dehydrated skim milk.
Well I'm no mathematician, but I think if you take water + oil and then you subtract the water and subtract the fat you should be left with nothing.
Actually, I lied. I am a mathematician and I know this to be true: x+y-x-y=0. Unless milk lives in some noncommutative universe of cooking ingredients! Maybe that's it and I am just using the wrong operation. If you think about how they blend it really seems more like multiplication anyhow. We just need to account for the fact that volume is additive in this situation and... and...
We still live in the real world.
It should have been a box of air.

5: Sentiments that sound absurd coming from a woman

1. Its his fault, coming in here with those arms practically bursting from his t-shirt.

When I interact with a sexy man, the conversation feels awkward. I feel guilty for not being able to keep my mind on Calculus or groceries or whatever I am supposed to be doing. When I day dream about sex, I internally apologize to the man in my dream for using his body like that without his even knowing!
When I interact with a man who finds me attractive and the conversation is awkward, I feel guilty for wearing something that shows some cleavage (because what doesn't when you are this big) or for being too flirtatious and not keeping the conversation on Calculus or groceries.

Ok. Nothing ever comes of any of this, so I should not be feeling guilt for either situation, but since men insist on blaming women for their own sexiness* I think I should at least be able to return the favor and complain when an attractive man wears jeans that cup his backside just so... It's not my fault. He was asking for it. Did you see what he was wearing?!

*If you disagree with the idea that men still blame women for their sexiness, then tell me why we need separate dress codes for different genders? Why is low cut only inappropriate if there is something to show off? Why do we have to cover up our bra straps? Why can children dress indecently and be cute and right around 13 it becomes wrong to dress that way? Why is it indecent to breast feed in public. Even if you are a man who does not think these things, you must know a man who does.

4: Awkward silence pressures

I wish I could have a little voice in my head that would stop me before I spoke. It would say "Shut up. Awkward silence is better than whatever you are going to say next." But without this voice, I ramble. I say whatever comes into my head. I tell someone about a movie that they really wouldn't like, that I didn't even like. I tell them about a moral debate that I am having with myself and then if I do manage to get them discussing this topic, I inevitably control the conversation because I have the home court advantage. The debate is in my head.
My adviser is extremely friendly and does not know what to do about someone else being socially awkward. I don't know how he has managed to live in the math world this long without screaming at anyone. Given a few seconds of silence as we walk somewhere, I have bored him by telling him about my new shoes (complete with details about my foot problems, always exiting to hear) my random health problems, my cleaning schedule, my little cousins, etc. I'm sure I was interrupting something that was already going on in his head. It may not have been interesting, but at least it was holding his attention.
Where do other people learn to make conversation. I know I need to learn to ask questions instead of talking about myself, but what can I ask? I open with "How is your week going?" and then I am stumped. My mind is constantly moving from thing to thing, so I just start talking about getting new glasses. I'm afraid if I tried to ask questions I would end up saying something like "Do you have any foot problems?" out of the blue, because of my stupid flow of consciousness.
Lets say I notice something about someone during a silence. They added highlights to their hair, for example. Now, it would have been polite to notice this earlier, but I did not. Do I point it out now? Is "I like what you did to your hair" good enough? What if they don't like how it came out? What if they actually did it 2 weeks ago? What if highlights are something they think is subtle and pointing it out defeats the purpose (sort of like "I like how you covered up the grey!" or "Good job masking that blemish!") What if they say "thanks" and we are left with another silence. This time, a silence that follows the introduction of a new topic. Is it rude to open with another non sequitur? Or must I continue on the vein of hair? What more can I ask? Did you have it professionally done? That is dangerous.
Today's annoying thing is really me. Me in normal situations.

3: Things it is improper to complain about in public

I had colitis a couple of years ago. I had to be hospitalized for a week. When I returned to classes, my lovely students were both concerned and keen on delaying the start of class and so they asked me "why were you out?" I responded without thought that I had colitis.
Everyone got quiet and a student asked "what is that?" to which another student hissed "-itis means an infection and so colitis is..."
They trailed off, student number one "got it" and no more talk of my colon distracted my class.
It occurred to me afterward that I had committed a social faux pas in this conversation. I guess I should have said "It was personal" or something. My poo should not be a topic of conversation in class.
But why not? I am not saying that I particularly want to discuss this with my class, but I was in pain! I had a hellish week and I wanted them to know that I was really sick and that they should cut me some slack. Should I have lied?
This is not the only pain which has to be hidden. In my relatively charmed life, I have often had to say "nothing" when someone asked me what was wrong, when in fact I was in pain. This pains in question range from a miscarriage to a UTI to a really bad itch in a certain place.
How come I have to miss a meeting with a man, giving the lame excuse of "Not feeling well" or the correct excuse of "feminine problems" (which, let's face it translates to "I didn't feel like it" due to overuse) when what is really going on is that I am suffering from hormonal attacks and anemia due to the fact that my uterus lining is shedding off and my stomach feels exactly the way you would expect internal bleeding to feel.
It is not fair that a stomach ache due to food poisoning gets sympathy, but constipation is a secret pain that you must suffer alone. Why is the line drawn at our underwear. Anything in that area is off limits. Mastitis was covered by my bra, so I was not supposed to tell anyone why I was feverish and loopy. An eye infection can be shouted from the roof tops. Singers cancel tours with public declarations of throat infections. If the line is grossness, then I think throats win out over breasts.
The line is definitely underwear.
Topic for a poll: Foot problems are as debatable as the question of whether socks are underwear. Do you think socks count as underwear? Would you be offended to hear that someone was suffering from an ingrown toe nail?

2: The proccess of getting to this blog

A couple years ago, I wanted a google calendar. I had to get a google account to get a calendar, which was fine. I enrolled in a university where the email service was soon changed to being some version of gmail. This is also fine. Now this means I have 2 gmail accounts. For a while my school account would not support other features and even now I don't think blogging is available to me, so I send and receive email through my school account and keep my calendar, documents and blog on my preexisting account. This could also be fine, accept that...

• When I log on to my email, the computer always seems to assume I want the unused email, even when I type my school email info into the login screen, for some reason it takes me first to my empty email folder and then allows me to switch accounts if I would like to.
• Occasionally, google goes through a faze during which it only allows you to view documents attached to the first account you logged into, so while I may be logged into to accounts at once, if I want to edit a document, I must first sign out of all accounts, then log in again in the opposite order.
• It took me 7 minutes to access this blog today. First I typed "blogger.com" into my task bar and waited, it redirected me to the login page for my school website. I then searched for blogger and clicked the link-same problem. Feeling creative, I went to a friends blog and clicked "follow" to force it to ask me if I want to sign in. Why yes, yes I do. I clicked the corresponding button and was redirected to the school login page. Ok. I login with the school and it tells me I have attempted to do something invalid. I go to google calendar which is of course displaying the non-school login name and go to the blog tab. It asks me if I would like to create a blog account under my school login id. I click "login under a different name" and it offers me the school account again. I log out, log back in and click the same button and here I am. The worst part is, I don't know what I did differently the second time. Every time I post a blog entry, I will be forced to spend 7 minutes looking.

All of this would be acceptable for me. I can forgive google for its quirks and oddities. It is made by humans with their own imperfections. Maybe someone out there is working on this very problem right now. The biggest problem with this whole thing is:

• Google is taking over the world and computer geeks are happy about it. Despite the joke level failure of google+, everyone still adores google and I feel like I'm pointing out that the emperor is naked when I get frustrated by a small 7 minute waste of time. It makes me worry that maybe it's not google. Maybe it's me.
  

1: the word "uncostitutional"

I would like to delete this word from the English language. I myself, have only used it to quote or mock other people, so it will not be a personal loss of any kind. If only other people could stop using it on TV, the internet or around me, I could pretend it didn't exist.
Maybe I could just begin a petition to declare "unconstitutional" a vulgar and inappropriate word. Then I could act as exasperated as I actually am every time someone uses it. I could say "Really, news anchor, you are going to stoop to using THAT word. On national television?!" and everyone around me would shake their heads sadly and think just what I am thinking "The world is deteriorating." Of course, they would be thinking it was because of all the cussin' kids do now-a-days and I would be thinking something else. Here is what I think:
Just using this word in conversation implies a few horrible things are going on in your brain:

• You are thinking that the rights and privileges that we call "human rights" are given to us by a birthplace, by a piece of paper or even worse by some very human men who came from a society with its very own flaws over 2 hundred years ago. You think that people who are born in Mexico do not share these rights, or you think that if we found out that the wording had been changed by some no-name secretary (from the original wording of the god-like founding fathers), that our whole society would collapse.
  
• You think that there is something pure about the morals put down on paper by these fully human and vulnerable dead men. You think that before we look to our hearts, we should look to theirs.
  
• You think that the correct reading of these words will show us the true and right way to live. You think that there is some "correct" way of governing which applied in 1800 and will apply just as well in 2000. This is similar to how many people feel about the bible, but it makes less sense. No one is claiming that these guys are gods.
  

These points are not even taking into account that the constitution cannot be applied to whatever you are trying to apply it to. There is nothing in the constitution about mandatory drug testing, or racial profiling or gay marriage. There are purposely vague rules about giving everyone freedom and liberty (another candidate for a declaration of vulgarity. What does this word even mean?) for all, but I guarantee that your opponent can almost ALWAYS use the same statement to support their own point.
The rules which are specific are suspect in their very own ways. There are more than 20 mistakes which have had to be corrected so far (that's what amendments are). It is therefore silly to tell someone that they are wrong because the constitution says so, unless you think that we should have slavery, only let a dozen or so people vote, and simultaneously ban and not ban alcohol.
For those of you who are into this word, and there are a lot of you (and you are loud) I may be willing accept the following compromise:
"Hence forth, the word 'constitutional' will refer to something which is currently allowable by the constitution as it stands. The word will not constitute an argument for or against something other than in a 'well, slavery has worked just fine for us for 80 years' sort of way. It will have at its very basis a temporary debatable feel and an understanding that the rules were made to be rewritten and that changing the laws to fit the times was intended by our founding fathers, who were imperfect men who happened to accomplish some pretty good stuff in their times."
Take it or leave it.