The Summer Holiday is a Fruit Tree

In the spirit of anticipation of the end of term I have been trying to use up the food that has been lying around in my cupboard. This consists mainly of two-year-old cans of beans. I was most pleased with myself today when I was able to liberate no fewer than two cans and four bottles of spice. As the food depletes and the kitchen counters get reclaimed by the Crumbmaker and her entourage of mess, and as the sun shines and the calendar ticks down to Q-day*, I feel my involvement in this spit-encrusted hovel begin to lessen. I phoned the water company today to cancel the account.

I might even miss the Crumbmaker a bit. I'd miss her more, but I already started missing her when we moved in together - when she who was once one of my favourite people in the world began, inexplicably, withdrawing from me. Plus, she makes so much bloody mess! Perhaps the least considerant person in the kitchen I have ever met. Severus I am going to enjoy leaving behind. I have had to put up with a year of listening to him finishing everyone else's sentences and belittling everyone (including the Crumbmaker, when they are supposed to be the best of friends), shouting (as a standard vocal volume) and snorting back phlegm on the landing.

And another gorgeous holiday is approaching. A holiday that has not yet started is one of the best things about life. It is far better than a great holiday finished or a holiday in progress. It exists at the edge of time, waiting, calling with boundless promise. A holiday that has not yet started is an opportunity to do anything and everything, all at once. There can be no plan or there can be a thousand, and because it has not yet started, all plans are still valid. You are still at the trunk of a magnificently beautiful tree with fractally branching possibilities. You have not yet crawled along a single branch to the very end of a twig only to realise that you cannot reach for the piece of fruit on the other side. At the trunk you can eat every single piece in with your eyes and imagine savouring the taste of each one. I have so many plans for when the holiday arrives, and as much as I will delight in executing them, I delight most now as I shape and reshape them effortlessly in my head. Right now is when I enjoy the summer the most.

It's just as well, because in the mean time I have to contend with stoopid revision and exams. I feel like I will never fit it all in my head in time, and I'm in the air watching the rocks as they come rushing towards me. Right now I am treating science with the greatest amount of grace-saving contempt I can summon. Let's see:

Quantum mechanics - A theory of not knowing stuff, and pretending not to mind. Responsible for some of the worst in-jokes known to man.

Statistical mechanics - Science is a science, they tell us. It is based on careful observation and formulation of rules derived from hard fact. Why then is statistical mechanics' most crucial tenet, S=klnW, based on a guess? And then there's Gibbs' Paradox. After being guaranteed this was a genuine paradox and being lectured through the maths, we are told it is not a paradox.

Electromagnetic theory - Maxwell decides to fudge, adding a term called "displacement current" to Ampere's Law in order to force an incorrect theory into validity. He fails, but inadvertantly fixes a different problem he wasn't even aware of. Oh, and the displacement current is not a current.



* - The day of my demise, the quantum mechanics exam.