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Just a quick update before I go collapse into a state of blissful vegetation, now that the semester is officially over and I don’t have to wake up at six tomorrow morning to study. Chris and I hit up the new Mandoo Bar on University Place tonight for some dumplings and drinks after my very last final of the term. I definitely needed some of each after over two hours of paper-and-pencil programming, but a little Korean lager goes a long way.

The food at Mandoo was great, and we liked the place itself - tastefully decorated, un-snotty waitstaff, good music. We split an order of goon mandoo, which were excellent - slightly crispy on the outside, perfectly tender on the inside. I also tried the joll noodles, which weren’t at all what I was expecting but which were equally tasty. We couldn’t finish our main courses, though, because the dumplings we started with were tiny but filling. That’s okay, there’s nothing like leftovers.

More thanks are in order: Chris and I had our Christmas this evening as I’m going to be in Massachusetts on the day itself, but Simon also sent along a couple of books off my wishlist that I’ve been positively lusting after. I can tell that this is going to be a very bookish winter break (which is of course the best kind).

Number of final exams taken today: 2
Number of final exams remaining: 1
Christmas presents wrapped today: 3.5
Christmas presents waiting to be wrapped: 5.2 million
Christmas presents waiting to be bought: 0
Days left remaining until I leave for Massachusetts: 2ish
Milligrams of caffeine consumed this week: all of them

Non-philosophy majors tend to be surprised that philosophy classes often have final exams. Of course we’d all rather they didn’t, but they do for what are probably more or less the same reasons other courses have them. In classes where we only have to write papers, most people read just enough to write the papers, and discussions tend to be either dull or irritating (or both) if nobody does the reading. Of course, it does seem weird that I’ve spent the last week trying to condense what I learned in two different philosophy courses into easily memorizable chunks that can be regurgitated when prompted by the dreaded “short answer” questions, but there it is. And it seems weirder that more discussion-oriented classes like seminars tend not to have exams, but I suppose the weightier participation grade makes up for that. But still - most classes have final exams in order to make sure students have done the work they’re responsible for, and philosophy classes aren’t usually an exception to that.

Computer science finals, on the other hand, are mainly irritating because we have to write the damn things by hand. Apart from the fact that I type much, much faster than I can write, it’s an incredible pain in the ass to go back and fix things when you’re programming on paper. Not only do you not get the benefits of syntax highlighting and smart indentation, you don’t get to just delete and add huge chunks of code as necessary - if you forgot something on line 3, you have to either go back and try to squeeze it in between lines, or erase half the page and start over. A take home final would be infinitely preferable, but I’m told there are worries of cheating - surely that can’t be the only concern, however, since programs done at home already count for a huge portion of our final grade as it is. I suspect it’s more that they don’t want us looking things up in reference books - but that’s also just silly, since there aren’t real programming situations in which you aren’t allowed to look things up. Of course familiarity with and understanding the languages in question is important, but nobody really sits down and memorizes paramter lists (except as preparation for a computer science exam).

Thanks to Adam, who sent Pirates and Harmonizer! I got them last night, and while things are a little too crazy tonight to settle down with Johnny Depp, I’m sure I’ll make time for him once finals are over on Thursday. Speaking of finals - I should probably get back to Aristotle. (I still hate him, just a little bit.) And for those of you who have been asking me what I want - well shucks, you don’t have to get me anything at all, you know.

Since I’m already playing Answer Lady this weekend: Upon discovering that NYU does actually pay me to be a Logic TA, a student from the class asked if I would still have agreed to do it if they didn’t. Unsurprisingly, the short answer is no. That’s not to suggest that I dislike either the job or the students, however - it’s just that grading derivations is amazingly dull, and it’s not something I have any interest in pursuing as a hobby. Of course, my job isn’t just grading. I do hold office hours and meet with students at other times as well, and that’s actually something I’ve enjoyed more than I thought I would. After acting as TA for a few months, I definitely feel even more comfortable with the material than I did after taking the class myself, and I like seeing other people go from terror to confidence over the course of a semester. Would I do the teaching and tutoring bits if I weren’t getting paid? I might, actually. But let’s hope it doesn’t come up.

A reader asked about my policy on Christmas - do I celebrate it? Do I go through the motions for the sake of the candy canes and eggnog? Am I, perhaps, secretly a devout Christian after all?

Well, that might be going a bit far: I’m pretty clearly a godless heathen with no plans for the saving of my soul. That said, though, I don’t feel as though I’m just going through the motions, exactly. I don’t have any problem at all with the notion of having a big party because it’s so dark and depressing out that we’d all go nuts if we didn’t, and it’s not as though it’s only the Christians that do that. I definitely dig getting out of the city for a week and spending some time with the family, and I won’t pretend I don’t enjoy the tree-and-cookies stuff, either.

I guess I don’t really see why I would be troubled by any of this. Maybe if everyone in my family had been going along all this time under the impression that I’m deeply Christian, I might be concerned at deceiving them - but they all know better than that anyway. Or maybe if I felt strongly about another faith I might be irritated at the nonstop references to Our Lord and Saviour, but as it happens that’s not the case either. And of course there’s the usual business about how the entire holiday has just been ripped off from those poor long-suffering pagans, anyway. I think all of this used to bother me more when I was a little younger, but that’s neither here nor there.

I’m reminded of a friend I had in high school who refused to accept presents in December unless we called them Solstice gifts, although that’s not a terribly useful example as she ended up a Methodist by the time we graduated. Either way: any holiday that allows for the baking of Christmas anteater cookies is all right by me.

For those of you in Logic who came to my office hours today: shoot me an email if you’d like solutions to those last two derivations we didn’t have time to go over, I’ve got them done and am happy to send them along. They’ll be PDFs because of all those zany quantifiers and whatnot. Good luck on Monday!

While he hasn’t run for his life (yet), Chris has nonetheless provided his own collection of things he feels I ought to know before I spend any more time leafing through IKEA catalogs on the train.

As most of you now know, my feline friend and I will be gaining a roommate within a month. In the spirit of letting Emma know who wears the pants, here’s a list of things she should remember:

You will have to assume cat-feeding responsibilites if you wish to become a productive member of this household. Think of the sad kitty, crying for food and confused, wondering why you’re ignoring him. Be good to the kitty and he will not poke out your eyes.

I’m very bad at remembering to do laundry as well. That’s why I wear black and have so many pairs of socks.

Looking under the couch invites disaster. You’d be attacked by mutant dustbunnies, and I don’t think I’d be able to save you.

The left-bottom kitchen cabinet holds my plastic bag collection. These bags are never used for anything. They are there purely for my entertainment.

Feel free to add to my culinary arsenal of 2 forks, 2 spoons, 2 glasses, 1 bowl, and 2 plates. If it has flowers on it, it goes in a box. Animals are allowed, but not animal prints.

The voicemail keycode is 7 digits because I like to be difficult.

A final word about milk: The refrigerator must (at all times) be capable of holding 1 gallon of milk. No exceptions. When I say “milk,” I mean “liquid secreted from bovine,” and not soy. Milk is a staple of my diet, and I become quite irate if milk is not available. Milk is to be placed on the top shelf, left side.

As some of you know and most of you don’t, in about three or four weeks I’ll be leaving my cozy Brooklyn apartment for a spacious 3br in way-the-fuck-uptown Manhattan, where I’ll be gaining a Roommate and a Fearsome Beast. In the spirit of giving Chris one last chance to run for his life, here are some things anyone who plans to live with me probably ought to know:

All that stuff about waking up early on Saturdays to watch Pokémon? That’s not a joke. I actually do set my alarm early enough that I can be up and coffee’d before the theme music starts. When I spend all week bitching and moaning about how I’m always exhausted, you may be forgiven for supposing that when the weekend rolls around I’ll take advantage of the opportunity to sleep in: but this is not the case (I’m just not that rational).

Similarly, those cute little toothbrush-grabbing animal heads I recently attached to your bathroom wall are the beginning of the end as far as your tasteful, minimalist apartment decor is concerned. You haven’t seen how many toys I have, because my apartment is smaller than yours and many of them are boxed up in the closet or under my bed. But with the advent of a three-bedroom residence, you can bet they’ll find their way out. And it’s not just toys - have you seen my Hello Kitty chopsticks?

I’m happy to cook, but there’s a reason I’ve had to go grocery shopping before almost every visit you’ve made to my place. The only things I keep in any quantity around my house are bags and bags of those instant Thai noodles. I know you like Thai noodles now, but this is literally all I eat when I’m by myself.

I’m really, really bad at remembering to do laundry. I’ve actually gone out and bought socks during the day because I forgot to do laundry the night before and had to leave for class still sockless or in knee-highs that were never intended to be worn in real life.

There’s a bag of wrapping paper and ribbon that lives in my closet. Soon it will live in your closet.

I don’t ever throw away old magazines: I just stack them up on what passes for my coffee table until they start to slide off of it, at which point they move to the floor next to the coffee table or possibly under my bed. But they don’t ever get thrown out, so I hope you’re interested in acquiring some back issues of Wired and The New Yorker.

And finally: well, I can’t tell you everything. That would ruin the surprise.