The Prisoner's Dilemma

Monday 14 April

Well this morning I woke up quite disoriented over the fact that I was awake and it was early and life was hard and whatever. Then I told myself to snap out of it because other people have bigger problems than a looming ochem exam that I know nothing about.

Deciding on footwear on mornings after a snow is always the hardest thing for me, because I either overcompensate with rain boots or the boots-that-are-halfway-waterproofed or underestimate with the Katniss boots or cloth-shoes-with-holes-in-them. The struggle is real.

Ochem was panic-inducing, then Law was thought-provoking with our guest lecturer, although somehow I think I'm going to have to purge my extensive knowledge of Thomas Jefferson and Edward Coke's legal theories to make room for this ochem shit and that makes me sad. This is the very last hoop I'm ever going to have to jump through. "Jumping," however, is a subjective term, as it'll be more like "tripping over the hoop, getting entangled in it, and then limping away in shame." Whatever. C's get degrees.

I came home, grabbed a fistful of crackers, adjusted my shoe choices, and headed back out to ochem recitation. More panicking ensued, though most of us have colluded and decided to fail collectively, though whenever I play this Prisoner's Dilemma game I am always the prisoner that get shit on. Freaking economic theory.

Anyway. I hung out in the basement of the library after that, reading an excerpt from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and a piece called "The Feeling of Flying," both of which were fairly enjoyable. I went to writing, halfheartedly contributed to class discussion, and got more excited to start Slaughterhouse Five, one of my favourite Vonnegut novels, on Wednesday.

I had a delightful walk home, cheered on the two trees in the front of Bear Creek that refuse to bloom, and Tumblred whilst eating pizza rolls and thinking about aldol condensations (wow I need a life).

YES TREE I LIKE YOUR CYNICISM

Crissie came home after I made some pasta and we went to the store, talking about the names of our pets, our many frustrations, and pizza roll addiction. We're cooler than cool.

The next six hours were spent in a daze as I did chemistry, thought about Nordic Literature, Tumblred, listened to Parov Stelar, verbally abused the microwave because it's a piece of shit, ate food, and ultimately ended up looking like this:

Off the Deep End...

Those are my headphones as a headband. Whoops. I'm so sad and done I can't even handle this anymore.

On the bright side, I can do chemical reductions like a pro.

I've been looking at the eclipse since around 11:40 and also napping on and off, and it's been pretty freaking sick, and as of 1:55 AM on April 15, 2014, it's almost completely dark. I may end up staying awake throughout the duration of the sinking of the RMS Titanic 102 years ago, if I feel like it (more like I have a shit ton of reading to do so it's going to happen). This is great.

Honestly, I can see why the ancient people feared eclipses. It's dark outside right now, and we've got Boulder and Denver's light pollution hanging out around us. That would have been terrifying hundreds of years ago. I'd think a god was angry with my people too if I wasn't so apathetic towards higher powers.

It's really weird to think of what we'll all be remembered by posterity as. This thought crossed my mind a lot when I was sitting in Art and Architecture of the Ancient Near East last semester. Honestly, if you think about it, if I can't understand an operating system from twenty years ago, how the hell are people going to be able to access the enormous collection of digital media we've created in the future? What are we going to be remembered as? If I were excavating Will Vill, I'd think that pyramid-looking thing was a temple, or that the giant brick towers of Stearns and Darley were housing complexes of sorts, and that Bear Creek was another housing for some hierarchical reasons or whatever. I don't know.

It's really something to think about, especially in the digital age. What lasting physical impact are we going to have on the world? Will we be the civilization that emerged after the atomic bomb, barely literate and impossible to get anything from them? Or will we be the dust age, known in eons as a literate and highly intelligent civilization that destroyed themselves? I dunno. I'm leaning towards the dust age. I don't know.

It's two in the bloody morning. I'm going to bed.

Thanks for reading :)