Senior Thesis

This is the colony of hamsters.

These are subjects 1, 2, and 5. Subject 1 is in the far corner and subject 5 is mostly buried under paper.

This is Lily and Rosetta. Rosetta is on the box and Lily, in the corner, is the one who was eating her dead cage mate.

Then science happens

I don't know why the fuck there are pink lab coats.

A while back I decided, quite naively, that I wanted to attend graduate school. So, I thought that schools might be more likely to accept me if I graduated with departmental honors, so I set about doing all the shit you need to do to make this happen. One of these things is undertaking and completing an independent research project and so now I have to go into the lab and make these hamsters press levers for chocolate flavored pellets in order to see if they will press the lever more or less if certain variables are manipulated. Sounds sexy, enchanting and earth-shakingly important, right?

I feel for the hamsters. I mean, their entire lives, just like ours, are pretty absurd. The hamsters are born in the colony in this one room that is kept temperature regulated and, at a certain point in their development, we periodically put them into operant chambers where they learn to press levers for different reinforcers. Once trained, they go through a couple of experiments where they have to press levers in 30 minute sessions 5 days a week while we gather data, after which, the subjects are returned to their cages, and their cages placed back into the colony room. Every so often hamsters have to be euthanized, or they die, and we either submit their carcasses to other departments, or throw them out with the trash.

Ridiculous.

Principia What?

Leibniz and Newton.

Go ahead, invent some other way to analyze the natural world, I'll own that shit too. What? You're dead? Damn, I'll just have to own someone else's shit then. Where the hell is Riemann? Just kidding, that shit is way out of my depth.

It's more than a little unfair to claim that I am on par with Newton and Leibniz, but I did complete the Calculus series with straight A's, so I feel that I need to brag a little bit. I won't lie, it was fucking brutal. It's really not fair to ask students to compress and understand 300 plus years of mathematical discovery over the course of 45 weeks, or three semesters. The depth of knowledge is so vast that even though I seem to have excelled in my studies, I actually don't fully grasp the implications of what I have learned. You just have to take on faith the things that you learn and then look in wonder at what has been found and realize the gulf that remains and how that you will probably not ever contribute in any meaningful way, but that maybe, you can begin to realize what the fuck is going on.

I went to a party tonight. It was a far cry from the ideal of a party that I have experienced: Dionysian excesses coupled with the rage of a trapped animal. It does not make for a pretty morning after to be sure. It was fun, but adult fun, not horrible grasping, terrible, adolescent fun. It was measured, not the kind of hedonistic endeavor that you hope leads to some tawdry hookup with a friend. I can't believe that people actually miss those days.

Anyway, there is no message, only the absurdity of living.

Fuck This Shit

Check this shit out.

Why back in my day, we din' need no damn Jap pitchers ta put the fear of Gawd in ya! Was enough to know ya's goin ta hell if ya jus thought about masturbatin'! Yessiree!