12 Dec 96 
 
It's a double number day, so I felt I had better write. 
 
Where has Meep been? some ask.  Meep has been studying and avoiding  
studying.  I've already taken my Real Variables exam, I have my Complex  
Variables exam on Monday, I have a project to type up for Genome Analysis,  
and I have a take home exam for Probability Limit Theorems that I'm not  
even looking at until next year (after my written exams). 
 
And yet, even with all this, I've managed to write up about 30 Christmas  
cards or so. 
 
Good for you, the encroaching horde cries. 
 
News, news: evidently they're going to use the work I did this summer  
on buckytubes.  I was despairing that my slave labor was going to end up  
as nothing.  I have prevailed.  Or something. 
 
Yesterday I heard Roger Penrose talk about whether we would need a new  
paradigm =in physics= to explain the workings of consciousness.  Actually,  
it kind of has something to do with quantum mechanics: he's proposing a  
need for a new quantum theory that would put a half-life on wave collapse.   
It's based on gravity.  It sounds really crazy, but this time it makes  
more sense to me than 3 years ago when I heard him talk at the Lanczos  
conference at N.C. State.  He had really cool overheads, hand drawn and  
everything.  I was practicing my A's during the talk and various textures.   
I think it's pretty. 
 
Afterwards, we had a =beautiful= reception - it rivaled some of the spread  
I saw on my cruise this summer (by the way, did I tell you I took a cruise  
this summer?).  An impressive array of cheeses, breads, crackers, and  
cookies.  Tonight we have our Holiday Party, to be catered by the same  
people, but with =more stuff=.  I saw the cases of vermouth sitting  
outside on one of the balconies of the lounge (interesting fridge yall --  
and not terribly secure, either.  People could have spirited some of those  
bottles away ... =heh heh=). 
 
Par-tay! 
 
How many days until home home home?  9.