Last Day in Philly

Last day of work. Kind of surreal. Took a cab home from work. Even more surreal.

Good housecooling, though. All the cool kids were there. kenli, shaw, becca, emily, meredith, cat, marissa, meg, caitlin, peter.

Happy Thursday

What I just typed when in my head I was thinking "I have a question":

• I was q

What I drank last night (evening, really):

• 2 "Big Azz" (22 oz.) margaritas, a Little Butt (12 oz.) mango margarita, & a pint of Magic Hat #9

What the waitress brought me when I ordered sopapillas (fried dough dessert) in an attempt to soak up a few of the 56 total ounces of margarita I had just consumed:

• A glass of tequila

What we did about it:

• Each took a shot of the tequila and then sat around wondering A.) why the waitress had just brought us complimentary tequila and B.) why the waitress never brought my sopapillas, never thinking that these two mysteries might be related.

Actually, I'm Irish.

I was getting tired of the Canadian flag, so I google image searched my name and came up with this logo for the bed & breakfast that I run. Ever since I started googling my name some years ago, I have been fascinated that only one other person on the whole world wide web (wwww) shares my name. She sounds very nice ("Cecilia Kiely will surely lighten your visit to the Irish Republic with her boundless energy and special Irish humour") and I've always thought I should go visit, although I think it might be a little awkward to make the reservation over the phone (I picture it like something out of a Fawlty Towers episode).

http://www.claraghbnb.com/

One Week and Counting . . .

Oh, I'm going to miss being cc'd on emails that contain questions like, "Did you buy my arguments in the mail to Ian on Smolyak's alg?" In a lot of ways, the world of applied math professors reminds me of the culture of high school debaters.

It's Official, Folks. I'm Canadian.

I decided to write about this today because I thought the Canadian flag would clash nicely with the magenta pigs, eliciting further comments about my lack of design skills. But really this revelation occurred over the weekend when the hairdresser stopped me midsentence to ask, "Are you from Canada?"



Now these days it is much more common for me to be misidentifed as male, as you can see in this list of things I am often mistaken for:

1. a man
2. a Canadian
3. a Canadian man*

which means that lately any issues with my national identity have been put on the backburner**. But when the hairdresser became one of the countless people in my life who have posed this question to me, I realized I needed to address the issue.

It baffles me. Hockey is my least favorite sport and I can't figure out where I would have picked up this subtle Northern North American accent. But I kind of like being Canadian. It makes me feel special. It lets me be different, but not in a way that causes awkward situations. I've never gotten looks that say, "Why are you, a Canadian, in the American bathroom?"

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*This is less common because most gender judgments are made before hearing my at least somewhat-feminine voice while most Canadian judgments are made after hearing my at least somewhat-feminine voice (with it's oddly Canadian pronunciation).

** Although I accidentally turned on the front burner instead when I went to boil them.

Why I Haven't Written Lately

. . . I've been exploring other media.

From Our Readers

This morning I received the following message from approximately 12.5% of our readership, so I thought I should post it:

Hey, here is a fun page. Maybe it could get onto your blog. It reminds me of your study of rugby. http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

Enjoy. I wish I could read fake science papers all day, but unfortunately these mathematicians insist on writing real ones that are not funny at all unless you get a kick out of "asymptotic expansions and Richardson extrapolation."

Blue

OK, so apologies to all of you who were subjected to what Laura calls "a long hard look at [yourself]" the other day when after happily clicking on your favorite colors you were told in no uncertain terms by a computer with a very loose grasp on the English language that you were a failure with one or more "actual problems."

I was just interested to see if any of you thought that perhaps the Color Quiz was onto something, because both Meg & I felt ours were freakishly accurate. But then again, the few key differences between my "asessment" and Meg's that seemed to correlate pretty well with our actual personality differences were probably coincidental.

So, here's another one. No surprises here. Answer a few random questions and you are assigned a color and presented with a nice blurb about some of the more pleasant aspects of your personality.

BLUE You give your love and friendship unconditionaly. You enjoy long, thoughtful conversations rich in philosophy and spirituality. You are very loyal and intuitive. Find out your color at Quiz Me!

"An Unadmitted Lack of Confidence"

Directions for today:

1. Take the

2. Discuss.

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Directions for tomorrow:

1. Bend

2. and snap!