Temperature Smeperature

After piercing chest pain this morning, I was starting to think maybe I had something other than your quotidian cold. Out of curiosity, I decide I should go ahead and take my temperature. This morning I had a fever of 101. Ok, kinda sucks. But I decided I didn't feel all that bad; outside of the shooting chest pains (reminders of my old habits, I've no doubt), my nose, head and throat all felt much better. Then seven hours later I retake my temperature, and I'm at 95.6. Is something wrong here? Am I dying? Or did I just buy a broke-ass thermometer? I don't get why people pay attention to this stuff -- or how I was convinced I needed said broke-ass thermometer that only comes in purple and looks a little like I'm worried I may be pregnant. I don't have any inflamed lymph nodes, the back of my throat isn't red and blotchy, and it doesn't burn when I pee: In my book, that makes me healthy. But I wouldn't mind kicking the last bit of this crap. I've got a really busy couple weeks in front of me, and the last thing I need is to need to sleep more than 4 hours a night.

I know...

I'm guessing you're probably saying to yourself, "I sure do hate JBP. Why the hell would he put this video on here for me watch. And at dinner time, too!" Well, this is just a random post, so feel free not to watch the video. Or, you could. Eitherway, I'm not here to press my views, only offer divergent ones.

And as a side note, I eat the way I do for health reasons; however, the whole "but, do they suffer" thing works pretty well, too.



P.S. Still feeling ill, but I might be on the up-swing. After the cold-sweats I've been having and a temperature of 97.6, I hope it's an up-swing.

The Bad News

Well, inevitably the Gods that be noticed I was flying high for a couple days, so I've been smitten...or, uh, smited? Maybe a little of both. I woke up this morning in some pretty bad pain: chest congested, lower back hurting, a sneaking, woofing cough. And, due to that and, to be honest, a couple other issues, I started talking to my fellow travelers who were headed down to present at the MidSouth this weekend. Originally everyone was riding with me down, and a complication arose as one of the other guys with a car drives an incredibly responsible hybrid...with only two seats. But as the details are getting mulled over, it became increasingly obvious that I would not be able to drive down with them. Luckily, everything worked out; NC is reading my paper for me, they're well on their way, and I've spent the last 4 hours knocked out. Quite literally incapacitated.

So, not everything worked out as planned this week. I'm just getting a huge jug of OJ and heading back to bed at the moment (my eyes are burning, too...). I hope to get the letter from Davis tomorrow with all the facts, as I'm interested to see the details. Till then...

Namaste'.

The Good News

Well, it's official; I have good news. After class last night I checked my voicemail and I had received a message from the graduate adviser of UC Davis. And I've not only been accepted into their program, but with full funding! So, I have a plan!

I received a follow-up e-mail this afternoon with a brief run-down of some details and in a day or two I'll receive a big, fat envelope with the numbers and the more serious facts to ponder over. In the meantime, though, it's a hell of a good day.

To ground this news to reality for a moment, I will naturally be on the look-out for other letters and phone calls. UC Davis is fairly high on my personal rankings, but I've still got several apps out in the field. In fact, since I've gotten a couple questions about it, I've included an updated list of all the schools. For those keeping track at home, you'll notice another new piece of information: I received an electronic rejection through e-mail while I was down in New Orleans from Irvine. However, that was only from their philosophy department and not the LPS program (Logic and Philosophy of Science). So here's the break-down:

• Accepted
• UC Davis
• Pending
• Rutgers
• Pittsburgh
• Stanford
• Princeton
• UC Berkeley
• Harvard
• UC Irvine, LPS
• Madison, WI
• Amherst
• Ohio State
• CU Boulder
• UC Riverside
• College Park
• Cornell
• Wash U
  
• Carnegie-Mellon
  
• Rejected
  
• Duke
• Chapel Hill
• UC Irvine, Philosophy

So that's what's going on in this world. I'll be waiting to see what other information comes in from those schools still pending. Naturally, I'll keep everyone updated. But it's just feels damn good to know that I won't be without a plan after this year.

And then...

Just when you thought I was back to posting regularly, something comes along to distract me. This time, that something is New Orleans. I'll be out of contact for the weekend, but I'll be back with plenty of stories on Monday (and, who knows, maybe an acceptance letter or two will come my way while I'm gone).

Rock.

With the Ole One, Two...

With the one, two punch, North Carolina has taken me out of the running. Today I got notice from Duke that they would be unable to offer me admission. Ironically, I thought their letter was quite cordial. So that's two down in two days.

With Grace and Absurdity

While I was picking up my second to last load from the dryer today, I noticed the mailman was already to the building next to mine. Perfect -- I'll be able to pick up my mail when I go to pick up the last load.

So there I am, on my way out the front door, when something hits me. All the sudden I get this crazy thought in my head that I've got a letter from one of the universities I applied to waiting for me in the mailbox. With rising anticipation, I open up the door and waiting for me inside is...

A very thin envelope from UNC, Chapel Hill. Given, I didn't open it for a few minutes out of respectful observance of cliche'-voodoo-hopeful-wishing, but when I did, it proved the whole thin-letter/bad news pairing to be true. So, one down. The corresponding sticky note is now off my wall and tomorrow morning I'll be putting up what I imagine will be the first of the wall-o'-shame letters*.

Eh, I never crossed my mind that I would get in to every school I applied to; so it's good to have that rejection out of the way with this first one.


* - The "Wall-O'-Shame" is a cathartic tool the 2nd years used last year in which all rejection letters are plastered to back wall of the TA office. Any and all letters are subject to mocking, scribbling, and ridicule on subjects such as diction, grammar, general turns of phrase, and occasionally just random, tangential comments to help bolster the morale of those applying to graduate schools. We'll see if it works.

Optimist v. Pessimist

The Pessimist says, "All women are bad." The Optimist replies, "I sure hope so."

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The Optimist says, "This is the best of all possible worlds." The Pessimist replies, "...Yup..."

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The Pessimist says, "This is awful; Life just couldn't get any worse." The Optimist replies, "Oh yes, it can."

Square Worlds

It was nearly a decent day out today. Given, it never got above 10 degrees, but it also never fell below 0 (though, I just found it, it apparently feels like -15). Considering the past week's weather, I'll take nearly decent any day of the week.

The weather?!? Are you serious? Yes, I'm talking about the weather. But you know me...it's just to lay the groundwork for what follows.

See, I heard it from a reputable source that the bitter cold air we'd been having was actually coming from Siberia. Yup, it's coming right up and over the top of the earth, gaining frost as it passes through scenic Canadia. Walking back from class yesterday, a friend made a comment about how expletively cold it was, and I made mention that the weather was coming from Siberia. Then, on a whim, I cursed whatever luck it was that we happened to live on a round planet. I mean, imagine the benefits of having a nice corner here and there to keep Siberian winds, if not confined to Siberia specifically, at least in Russia? A good cubed Earth, that's what we need. Then one of the more insane conversations I've had in a long time occurred, including questions about whether throwing apples over the side would result in an alarming number of injuries and how it'd feel to "tilt" as you topped one of these corners. The pentacle was a tangent from the gravitational effects of such a planet to the Olympics; the required expansion beyond summer and winter games to center and side games. I mean, imagine a pole vault right over the edge: "And a new world record - he made it all the way to the opposite side, crossing 47 countries and 2 international edge lines before touching down!" Not to mention some gymnastics acts right on a corner. Could you handle 3 gravitational directions at once?!? Anyways, it felt good to have an absurd, conjecture laden, reality suspending conversation like that. I hadn't had a good bought of that in awhile.

Oh, and another absurd turn in a conversation happened today. I was talking to a friend about making scrambled tofu, and second friend interjected to ask what scrambled tofu was. Friend number 1 takes this opportunity to say it's just like scrambled eggs, only instead of chicken eggs you use tofu eggs. I then carry this on to say you've got to make sure to get the freshest eggs, as tofu are self-germinating. Sometimes you crack the egg and out falls a fully formed tofu. I don't know about you, but I'd imagine a tofu (the kind coming from such an egg) would look oddly like a kiwi or some similar blip in evolution's attention. Duck-billed seitan, anybody?

In other news, I got a couple calls on my applications this week. Unfortunately, they were along the lines of "we've received items x and y, but we're missing items a thru r." Ok, not that bad. In fact, all my materials were at the institution already, but simply in the wrong department's office. So, these weren't too serious of issues, and I guess they did me more good than harm. Mainly, it's just good to know that decisions, or at least serious scrutiny, is currently being given to applications at some of my schools. And from the call I got from Davis, I'd imagine I might start receiving the first trickle of decision notifications in as little as two weeks time. But I won't count my tofus before they hatch.

Two trips coming up, but I'll talk about that in a later post. This has already run over my own attention span, especially considering the wain of endurance from not posting as frequently as I could. Anyways, I'll write again soon. Till then...

Namaste'.

The Best Philosophy Comic Ever

Click on the picture for a larger version.