Farmer's Market

Today I went to the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market, for the first time in a very very long time. There's something truly magical about exploring aisles of colorful vegetables, most of which you'd never see in a grocery store.

And on the other hand, well....

"Look, look!" I said, grabbing my boyfriend by the hand and pointing to a sign.
I read: "Having a party? Rent a rooster!"
"What?" he was befuddled.
The lady at the desk smiled, and put on her sales pitch. "Yes," she said, "you can rent a roaster."
A what? I looked at the sign again. "Having a party? Rent a R-O-A-S-T-E-R."
"Oh," I said, disappointed, "I thought it said rent a rooster."
It was the lady's turn for befuddlement. "Why would anyone want to rent a rooster?"
"You can buy a rooster, if you'd like," volunteered her daughter.
My visions of a pleasant two hours cuddling with a chicken crushed, I walked off into the throng.

Ack!

So, I'm still trying to find another class. I have a class I really want to take. That class is full. I've signed up for another class, and today decided to swap it for a class that was open but slightly preferable. So I compared numbers, and did the swap. I compared numbers three times.

And when the swap was done, I found the wrong class had been dropped. Blink, blink. What? Not only did the wrong class drop -- which I would, hopefully, be able to grab before anyone grabbed my slot -- they dropped the one class I can't add back on my own: my seminar. There's a waitlist. I can't get back in, not on my own.

Desperation. Panic. Excessive foul language. And a hasty e-mail to the woman in charge close to leaving time on a Friday.

Powers that be, be kind, be kind, be kind!

Global Warming and probability

Richard Posner, guest blogging over at Larry Lessig's blog, posts about global warming.

And he hits all the basics: world is warming, we're releasing greenhouse gases, these are correlated with global warming. And he hits the major basic: we don't really know exactly how the global climate system behaves, but it's possible that oceans could rise, more hurricanes could happen, winds and currents could change, thus disrupting commerce, more rain could wash away arable soil et cetera et cetera (okay, he wasn't that detailed in the catastrophe scenario).

Technology, of course, says Posner, will probably save us all. (I'll leave this one to the experts).

So the second and third commenters reply, "Now you sound scary. Boo hoo. Because we don't know for certain that catastrophe may result from global climate change, I must slam you."

I'm completely baffled by people's ability to read "X might happen" as a statement of certainty. One of the commenters notes that we suck at predicting the future. But this isn't exactly true. We suck at guessing what the outcome will be, but we can do a reasonable job if we consider not what will happen but what might happen.

For instance, if I were playing poker, to pick an example not entirely at random, I might not have a clue what my opponent had. Maybe my opponent has two pair? Ace high? Who knows? But I might be able to guess what the likelihood of my hand being higher than my opponents was -- or the likelihood of my opponent's hand being higher, but low enough that I could bluff. Someone who is good at doing these sorts of calculations will, in the long run, beat someone who is bad at them.

Science is not about knowing "the answer". It's about knowing that potential answers are conditioned on information that you have and that you don't have, and trying to figure out how right your answers are. It's okay to be unsure. It's okay to try and quantify how unsure you are. It's okay to say "X may happen, but with Y percent." And to assign errors and identify unknowns and try and figure out how errors and unknowns may change your answer. But there's something strange when someone posts "global warming may (with small likelihood) have catastrophic effects" and people respond as if he'd donned a cardboard sandwich sign saying "The end is near!"

Scare-mongering is not the same thing as discussing catastrophic possibilities. "Will" and "may" are two different words. People deploy them in different situations, often with good reasons for their choice.

But she's not in Tibet yet

I mentioned in the last entry that Mom was going to the other side of the world presently. For now, she's in Seattle. And she just called me:

"Heidi, how do you access the Internet when it's not on your computer?"

Ah, Mother, I've been answering questions like this all day. I think the answer is Milton Friedman.

[Nothing] like my mother

Today they handed us our first cite-checking assignment, grinned merrily, and said, "Go at it!" Thousands of associate editors -- okay, fine, tens of associate editors -- flooded the lowest level of the law school, madly cite-checking.

I found, after the first three hours, that I was getting more and more disgruntled. Oh,I thought, You looked up the quotation and copied it almost word-for-word, but you didn't put the pinpoint cite? This is a big book, you know. It must have taken more effort to say "at ____" than it would have just to write the numbers. Sheesh. Pretty soon I noticed that my internal mental grumbling was making me somewhat grumpy.

Brief pause (and visit to library to get missing source). And the next time, I started to think of the authors kind of, well, kind of like my mother. Smart. Something to say. With occasional imprecision.

"Heidi," I imagine the authors saying, "Um. Can you help me pinpoint cite this thing?"
"What thing?"
"That. You know. That thing. The thing that goes ba da da da da?"
"Uh, you mean Milton Friedman?"
"Yeah. Where's that thing?"
"Over here, Mom."
"The thing isn't working. I think it's broken."
"That's because you didn't italicize the comma between See and e.g., Mom."
"Oh. Like this?"
"Yes. See?"
"Oh good. It's working this time. But what will I do if I can't call you?"

Pause, mentally. And sigh.

When I started writing this, I was kind of amused with my characterizations of these authors. Imagining them as my mother had me in all kinds of good humor throughout the day. That last line . . . . My mother will soon be in Tibet, unreachable by any means. It's not like I call her anywhere near as much as she wants. But I've always been able to.

And so, amusement has transmuted into a strange inexplicable loneliness. Because in most of the ways that matter, cite-checking is nothing like my mother.

Abject Apologies

It has come to my attention -- by means of a delightfully kind, informative and, um, entirely amusing e-mail sent by a completely unexpected source -- that Lake Huron is in fact nowhere near Ann Arbor, and I fed ducks on the Huron River. It turns out that, and I quote, "when you can see the opposite bank, you can be sure you are not at a Great Lake."

Consider me suitably chagrined. I generally can tell the difference between a lake and a river, but sometimes the subtler distinctions escape me.

And -- for my unnamed omniscient source -- please don't drop everything to teach me "Geography and the Law." It's a hopeless cause.

(Of course, I have now essentially named my source. There's only one person who could possibly be in a position to teach "Geography and the Law" who is also omniscient.)

My answers to the quiz suggested by my helpful geography tutor:
1. Lansing.
2. Michigan. I think Lake. Maybe River Michigan?
3. That would be the River Superior.
4. Oh, you don't have to tell me twice! Huron River. Hah. I never make the same mistake twice.
5. Wisconsin.
6. Indiana and Ohio.
7. Switzerland. I can tell because it's the one shaped like a boot (sorry, only my sister Jenny will get this one).
8. Saginaw Bay.
9. Lake Michigan and the Huron River.
10. The Grand Lake.

Re-ducks

Yesterday there was a law review barbecue by Lake Huron. So I went. After we had eaten, and as the sun began to set, we noticed a slew of ducks that had come up on the banks of the river to browse. "Duckies!" I noted (something about fowl makes me revert about twenty-five years in age). Yes, duckies.

And suddenly I realized. "Bread!!!" (this time pointing to the left-over hamburger buns).

So a handful of us fed duckies (and gooses, if the truth be known, although geese are mean and peck duckies). Some brave souls fed the solitary swan, but it hissed at me and scared me. Somewhere, probably from my mother, I have the idea that swans are mean and break your arm. This swan didn't really threaten the integrity of any of my limbs.

Leaving the park with a little skip, I commented, "I like Law Review."

Another girl, overhearing me, said, "Oh, because they feed you?"

Um, no. Because I fed the ducks.

Summary of First day of LR Orientation

Prepare to work hard. If you perservere, you too will get to quote Henry V.

Real Women

A sometime-debate was touched off by Amber's post, noting that Real Women Have Curves. Kalblog responded that real women are fit. (Props to T-Rick -- it's so rare we agree, that I feel I should point it out.)

Of course, the problem here is that fit women have curves, too. And this brings me to one of my gripes. When I was in Colorado, I actually had a television, and actually watched the women's all-round gymnastic event. And speaking of women that don't have curves, Svetlana Khorkina is ... is ... how to put this nicely? That woman would probably have a better temper if she were actually getting enough calories to survive. And don't tell me that she has to look like that -- Carly Patterson and Mohini Bhardwaj have actual flesh over their facial features.

And yet our media tend to choose models with bodies more like Khorkina. This does not, by the way, necessarily persuade people to become more fit. Often, it persuades people to have weird body issues and to engage in eating behaviors which are, in the long run, downright destructive.

And the damnable thing is that, while I know men who do prefer their women to be straws, swaying in the wind, I also know a great many men who don't like that kind of figure, who enjoy curves. (In fact, some men take it to a non-fit extreme. I once had a roommate who weighed in somewhat closer to the 300 pound mark; she got more male attention than anyone else I've known.) The same goes with make-up. If the ads were believed, no woman would attract a man without smearing goop over her face, liberally. But I've met plenty of men who find that stuff completely baffling and unattractive. If the ads were believed, the girl in the $800 outfit would out-class the girl in the $10 outfit. But some men are oblivious enough that they'd never know the difference between the $10 outfit and the $800 one.

Real women may have curves or not. They may wear make-up or not. They may dress extremely well or rather shabbily. Real women may want male attention ... or they may not. The only conclusion I come to is that real women try and ignore advertisements, and they do what suits them best.

More than chickens, indeed

Lots of guesses, some dead on, some ... well, some less so.

• Posting on my blog: ah, well, you know. You don't always love your addictions.
  
• Doctors: No, not in their capacity as doctors. One particular doctor, yes, but it's not for his MD; in fact, I'm more pleased when his response to my medical whining is something like "suck it up; you're not going to die."
  
• Friends and family, of course.
  
• Books, natch.
  
• As for that twit who suggested "chicken sandwiches" all I have to say is that you didn't make seven feet tall. And no you are not still growing.
  
• Law School, LOTR, and Life: bingo on all three.
  
• Garlic, ice cream and salmon. Now there's a pickle. I think that only garlic belongs, but the other two were a close call.
  
• The boyfriend? Well, yes. But don't tell him.
  
• Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth and chocobos. Hrm. Chocobos fall into nearly the same category as chickens; flightless birds which I do not own but think are cute and funny. However, chocobos have a slight minus in that they are fictional. So ixnay on the ocobo-chay. But if I take these to mean Final Fantasy in general, it's a really tough call. Edge to FF over chickens. But just barely.
  
• Dice. Not really. But if you mean activities with dice, yes -- particularly if MH, my old friend from high school is the DM. And not if my older brother is, because that flat-out guaranteed that my character would die.
  
• co-summers: uh, yes. Yes. Yes. Of course.
  
• Linux: Duh.
  
• And the winner is: the fine poster who points out that one thing which is surely better than chickens is .... more chickens! Yay!
  

• Sunlight
  
• Clean clothing
  
• Richard Posner guest-blogging on Larry Lessig's blog.
  

Back here!

The original plan: from Colorado to Chicago, spend a little bit of time there, then head back to Ann Arbor. Sigh.

Trip
The trip from Colorado to Chicago was long. Originally, we were supposed to leave around 7:30 PM. In fact, our train didn't show up until 2 AM. We lost even more time by the wayside. We ended up arriving in Chicago eight hours late....

Luggage
... And when we got there, we had one of those heart-stopping moments where you're waiting for your luggage and than the carousel stops. Dead. No more luggage. Well, we got my boyfriend's piece off, but mine was nowhere to be seen. There were no transfers -- we gave our pieces to the attendant at the same time. What could have happened?

What could have happened, indeed? They forgot to put it on the train, originally. They looked around a bit, shrugged haplessly, and gave me a number to call. I called the next morning and left a message. Then I called again. Then I called again. Finally, I got a call back. My luggage, they said, was on its way to Chicago. It would arrive by 9 PM.

"But I won't be in Chicago at 9 PM!" I protested.
"Well," said the lady, "That's where it's going to be. You'll just have to come down to the station and get it when you can."
I paused a few seconds, and blinked the blinding red out of my eyes. "No," I said calmly, "You're going to have to send it on to Ann Arbor."
She grumbled and finally told me she'd send it over on train 350.
"Will you call me and tell me when it gets there?"
No. That was too much work. She told me she'd look up when the train would arrive, and tell me over the phone. But as we learned earlier, the scheduled time of arrival probably has about as much to do with reality as partridges do with air conditioning vents. I finally gave up, and let her have her way. Hopefully I'll get my luggage back, because I want a change of underwear in the worst way....

Squirrel
.... but we went to the University of Chicago, where my boyfriend was an undergraduate a long time ago, and he showed me things and coaxed me out of my incredibly sullen mood. Eventually, we stood on a lawn somewhere near the hospital, and threw a hacky-sack back and forth. A few intrepid squirrels watched us.

And then that evil destroyer of ducks, Will Baude showed his sneaky head. No, not in reality. In, um, partridge-hood. Because all of you University of Chicago students have been feeding those squirrels over-much. Hacky-sack escapes the grasp of yours truly. Squirrel takes one glance at it, performs sneaky squirrel calculation ("thing thrown my way by humans = food" -- an equation almost certainly taught to the squirrel by that dastardly Baude fellow who wanted to foil us in exactly this manner). Squirrel dashes out and grabs the hacky-sack in its mouth and before we can do anything about it, scrabbles up the nearest tree.

Boyfriend's beloved hacky-sack is now up in the tree, and it's All My Fault (and incidentally, all Will's fault. Trust me, if I had a more convenient person to blame, I would).

Epithets being ineffective, we eventually resort to hurling sticks. Not at the squirrel (for heavens, sake, I was aiming, and you already know what my aim is like!) but nearby. Eventually, we startle it into dropping the hacky-sack.

Victory was ours.

So there you have it, folks: Michigan law students are smarter, just barely, than the squirrels (and partridges) at the University of Chicago. Those of you thinking about applying to law schools should take careful account of that fact.

Ann Arbor

And I'm back. Tired. And, inexplicably (or rather, easily explicable to someone not tired and grouchy) all my furniture is piled in the corner of one room by my subletter. Alas. And there is no toilet paper. Double alas (and did I mention the underwear problem?) and alack as well. But I'm home.