Ughhh.... this is what happens when I neglect my blog for too long.... all those unnecessary marketing comments! On the other hand, I'd rather risk that trash than not allow anonymous (i.e., ananymous, chiefly yours) comments. But where have I disappeared all of this month??

Well, Fi was over this side of the country. Not very close to home, but close enough that I could travel to meet him as often as I could manage. He was working on developing the system he had designed back home. So, between work and lab and classes (with that midterm included) and travelling and all of the conversations, I didn't feel the need to blog.

I mention the conversations separately because I think that's a very important fraction of what the last month has been. Not for the first time have we talked of our future, but for the first time, with this intensity, each of our lives the way we expect to live it was put in the context of our relationship and its future. Career, family and to-be-family, finance, and our expectations of ourselves and of the other, all examined and each arranged in its proper sphere. I know there'll be surprises and "changes in plan and schedule" coming up along the way, but I'm glad I'm headed towards my future with someone who's as serious and focussed as I am, and just as alive, dynamic and vibrant.

Alright, now I'm off to delete those weird comments. And then, get back to work.

Remembering Bobby Darin...

...and Multiplication. But in a very very different, i.e., genuinely mathematical, sense. (For those not in the know, this used to be one of the oldies I've listened to a lot as a child.)

Today I went to the bank. There was a problem with some cheques I'd given someone, and I'd no clue why they'd not gotten through. So I reach the teller's desk and explain the situation and ask her if she can help. She goes over the cheques, tells me they look okay, and, to make sure, she goes over the "math" again, i.e., making sure the total amount is correct. I'd had a problem with five cheques, all of the same amount, a round figure. How difficult can it be multiplying any number by five? I mean it's the kind of thing you have no excuse not to do in your own head. I gave her an exasperated look as she slowly tapped out the numbers with one long painted witchy-looking fingernail, on an ancient, and correspondingly bulky-looking, calculator. The result flashed on the screen at the same time as the alarm in my head went, who will guard the guardians themselves? I mean, think about it. I'm assuming all the people they have working at banks, etc., are accounts and finance majors. They've spent at least four intensive undergraduate years mostly juggling figures. And even if they're not BS, Accounting, etc., they still have all those days, weeks, months, hell... years, of experience with simple arithmetic operations. If they don't know their five times tables in their heads, who would?!

Well, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, seeing that the amount on each cheque was a bit more than a single-digit figure. And we went on to bigger things. Till, a few minutes later, she announced that her manager would be a better person to address my issue, and would I please step into the back to speak with him? I obliged.

I walked in, asked the same question, showed the same cheques with the receipt I was given when they were returned. Apparently the person I'd addressed the cheques to was charged $6.00 for each of them. Can you do the math? $6.00 for each of five cheques makes $30.00 in all. And I had to watch the Branch Manager of my bank take his sleek, modern, silvery-steely-icy-looking calculator and type out 6 x 5 = and watch 30 appear on the screen as the result. You will understand what torture that is for someone like me if you actually know me personally, but as an analogy, it physically felt like how one feels when one scratches a blackboard with one's fingernails or something really squeaky.

The only good thing was, it turned out it was not mine or my friend's fault that the cheques didn't come through, and he got his money back. But I'm still left with an Oh-My-God feeling I cannot shake off. Can we start a "Let's Teach Arithmetic To People Who Use It Professionally Everyday" movement?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

-Juvenal, Roman poet & satirist (55 AD - 127 AD)