So that's... three days I haven't been outside. A combination of essay-writing and total lack of motivation.

I must go to work tomorrow. This is the problem with a job without a schedule, my alarm goes off at three digits in the morning and I can choose to stay in bed. So I do, and I tell myself I'll make up the hours later. Once again the government's work-study money is saved.

I'm really getting into this sociology essay, though I have no idea what I'll talk about once I run out of fresh, slightly-flawed analysis and have to bring in the readings from class. It was amusing how Prof. Clark so consistently defended the readings earlier in the term (the power of statistics!) but the generally uncritical stance he took towards all the texts (save one) leaves me with little to do except check my data against their predictions.

I've learned so much math recently. I know now that the top bloggers tend to be in more populous areas — population is the single strongest predictor (r²=0.71) of how many Technorati 100 blogs a city will have — but the number of college graduates in the area doesn't matter much at all. I can show you this with math.

So many words I don't understand. It's all well and good to tell me the ideal Mallows C-P depends on p, but if I don't know what p is? And if I don't know what the thing is that you tell me that the p is?

Meanwhile, my brother is going to be an engineer at 3M. Two roads diverged...

For authors who don't rely on statistics at all — Sontag, who I loved, and Brooks, who I despised — there's no denying the existence of their pet phenomena. I can't refute the concept of "Bobos," and I don't win any points saying the top bloggers don't fall under that label. Better to scrape for examples that support Brooks' thesis. And the demon grows stronger.

I would be shocked, shocked, if I couldn't find examples of camp.

Tomorrow, after work and my epic journey to Evanston to see a movie with Jinx — doesn't The Squid and the Whale sound like an old Disney movie to you? — I'm hoping to finish. We'll see. I've got days yet, to do this and that.