stupid math problem

i think that i have gre posttraumatic stress disorder. nora and mari are preparing to take the test sometime this winter, and their ceaseless vocabulary drills have me dreaming of my own gre test. this evening i've been haunted by a really tough question from the math section. it goes something like this:

during his stay at robbins, andrew spent most of his time in one of three apartments, two 4-person apartments and a 2-person apartment. if no one who lived in a 2 -person apartment is currently married, the editor lived with three men who are currently married, and the engineers only lived with philosophers or other engineers, what were the majors of andrew's roommates? and for extra credit, what does this have to do with the other andrew?

major	2006 occupation	2006 marital status
1 biology	1 researcher	1 married
1 english	1 editor	1 single
3 accounting	3 accountants (2+ cpas)	2 married, 1 single
1 history	1 barista/editor (ee)	1 single
3 engineering	3 engineers	2 married, 1 single
1 philosophy	1 manual laborer/webdesigner with an mdiv	1 married

actually, i don't quite know why i made this table. as i prepared to discuss the other andrew, i was thinking something like "wow, except for erik and steve, everyone who lived in my robbins triangle is currently working in the same field as their majors. that's pretty impressive." and then, "i wonder if there's any correlation between major and marital status in this cohort." (gosh, i'm a nerd, and there's not) and finally, "i hope people (joel) aren't angry that i haven't talked about the other andrew yet."

(758 to go)

andrew moves to robbins

in september of 2000, i joined jonathan, brady, and danny in a two-bedroom attempt at apartment life. like any self-sufficient city-dwellers, we cooked in our own kitchen, lounged in our own living room, and squatted on our own toilet. very adult of us, we thought. but despite our self-reliance, i've since decided that our apartment was the collegiate equivalent of a half-way house. in order to lessen the shock of independent life, the university furnished each apartment with a security blanket--well, really it was more a security rug than a blanket, and it sat in the entryway, a metaphysical appendage of our front door. indeed, it was the dorm doors of robbins that kept us insulated from darkness of the real world.

forgive me. i just finished thomas pynchon's the crying of lot 49, and i'm afraid that his wacky, nonsensical style has somehow seeped into my blog. let me offer (and then dismiss) a quick spu tutorial.

students at the college of queen anne often refer to their school as the spu bubble. they lament the university's cultural composition (primarily conservative caucasian girls) and urge one another to pop free of the campus confines and explore more diverse seattle haunts. while at spu, i worked across the lake at a market research center in bellevue, and because the phone-room at northwest research group (it's sad...i still remember the number: 1-800-545-5909) was a haven for cultural diversity (and crazies), i never felt too passionately about spu's lack of hetergeneity. still, when speaking vaguely of doors and their ability to separate one from the real world, i understand that most spu-affiliated readers (after shrugging their shoulders in bewilderment) might speculate that i am satirically referring to robbins as an academic hotel california. the doors hem you in; they are everywhere (everywhere!). you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. or something like that.

they'd be wrong.

(note to self: don't employ this trick again--it's word-wasteful to spend so much time talking about what you don't mean).

(beth's note to myself: stop preluding)

during the past three years i've lived in a house and a pair of apartments. i've chatted with my neighbors about soccer, stolen cars, and Jesus "being some crazy, mixed up sh-t, man," but i've never peeked inside their homes, stared at their fish, or even considered stealing their milk. in robbins we were protected from the anonymity of this real world. the doors in robbins were always open, inviting us into communion.

and it was there that i finally met the other andrew....


andrew david. "jello 1 -- basi lays the trap" robbins, seattle, wa.
by the way, those are matts not andrews.

total robbins apartments (i.e., neighbors) that i entered unannounced: 6+
total post-spu apartments/houses (i.e., neighbors) that i have entered unannounced: 0

nearly an introduction

last week i promised a post about the brain of the other andrew. i didn't share this, but he was to be the test case for my online obituary idea (see yesterday's post). however, after a day's reflection, i've decided that even a bucket of laud isn't worth the sham of a fake obit. besides, i faintly recall that when dave eggers tried it in a heartbreaking work of staggering genius*, his thoughtfully humorous memoir was nearly overtaken by dull monotony and post-modern pseudophilosophy. so, in an effort to avoid anything that might make me a wealthy contributor to mcsweeney's (the brainchild of mr. eggers) or scare my friends, i think i'll introduce the other andrew in a more ordinary fashion:

i first met the other andrew during my freshman year at seattle pacific university (spu). although andrew shared a room with some sophomores in a remote area of my dorm floor, i can't recall a single conversation with him from that year**. therefore, this introduction will resume with events that occur sometime after the 1999-2000 academic year.


andrew david. "african dancing" puget island, wa.
andrew david. "the best modeling mug" shekinah, saskatchewan.

*that is, when he tried writing about writing a mock obituary. by the way, nick hornby has now transformed the heartbreaking work of staggering genius into a new line cinema screenplay

**there are several explanations for this seeming lack of discourse during early y2k: (1) perhaps there really was no lack, perhaps we actually had several notable conversations, but they were wiped from my mind by the events of the following years--as manyone will tell you, my memory's not that great; (2) while andrew was a fellow 5th hill-er, his room was in another galaxy of the floor--i can't even remember where--it certainly wasn't close enough to borrow sugar or to be lured in by dumb and dumber, counterstrike, or the brassy sounds of chicago; (3) andrew is tall, and i've recently discovered that i don't like tall people (i.e., individuals who are taller than me). last week as i edited a PTSD manuscript for daniel conybeare i looked up from a dangling modifier and realized that i really was looking up. "this isn't right," i thought. "i didn't realize you were taller than me," i said. and here's some more anecdotal evidence: if your name is nathan white, jonathan skeith, or john brawner, you'll notice that i haven't called you in quite some time. no disrespect, but you're just too tall.

fingers

my roommate has this unusual theory about air conditioning. instead of pointing our electric fan in the direction of our rooms, he aims its whiring blades at the bathroom--that is, he sends the cold air in the completely opposite direction of our rooms. he claims that this creates some kind of vaccuum, fifth dimension, or high pressure system whereby our home will become magically cooler. mark's dad has a phd, so i tend to believe him about stuff life this. still, when i arrive home at night, i like to hang out on the porcelain throne--for some odd reason, the toilet is the coolest spot in the house....once i'm refreshed, i mosy into my bedroom and prop open the window.

this summer ritual isn't so bad except for nights like tonight when the window comes crashing down on your hand. then, as you nurse your throbbing fingers, you start to wonder about hot days in the artic. you curl up on the couch and sulk, cursing the heat, the fan, and that stupid window. or you might praise God that your name doesn't end in skeith.

that is, today i dialed up my long-time buddy jonathan skeith and learned to be thankful for aching fingers (at first my mood was celebratory: jonathan passed the cpa exam. that means he can begin reintegrating himself into regular life. but then i heard the news: his wife's grandmother died last week. jon and kim spent the weekend at the funeral in idaho. and the other news: last night jon's baby daughter, naomi, had a bad, bad fever. when it reached one of those bad numbers in the low one-hundreds, the family spent the night at the ER. thankfully, the doctors said that it was probably a one-time viral thing. and then): jonathan's brother jacob lost three this last weekend. as he was trying to fish his wife's diamond ring out of a lawn mower bag, the machine got greedy. it sucked his hands from the bag into the spinning blade. in a split second the fingers on his left hand were cut in half. agggggh. painful. unlike the film kiss, kiss, bang, bang (another finger story from this week), jacob's finger tips couldn't be recovered. he'll be stuck with stubs and odd phantom feelings of whole fingers. so, if you pray for random people that you read about on the internet, pray for jacob (or jonathan, or kim, or naomi...), and if a bad day's got you down, be glad for those happy ten.


no pictures today. i'm trying to decide how to handle my pictures of people. they're not great pictures, but they are fun memories. i need to decide what i'm hoping to gain by posting photographs. what's my purpose...?