A visit from the homework fairy
--3 February, 2009, 20:25:40
Excitement happened, as it often does, while I was in the bath. There was a tremendous clatter, and my cat, Brownie, began shrieking. Fearing that she'd been damaged in a moment of clumsiness, I grabbed a towel and went sprinting towards the source of the noise. Brown was fine, but she was peering out the kitchen door onto the (enclosed) back porch. I figured she wanted to swat the windows in the direction of some outdoor intruder, so I opened the door and let her onto the porch...much to the dismay of a trapped squirrel.
The poor squirrel, which had been beating himself rhythmically against the windows, now became frantic and banged himself off of every surface. The pink-nosed predator added to the chaos by swinging at the squirrel whenever he slowed down, and he started leaving blood smears and spatters on the windows. I opened the door, hoping he'd run outside. Instead, he charged in my direction, he paused to rethink that decision when I wielded my towel like a matador's cape. (The neighbors got a show.) After that, he dashed into the basement, and that was the last I saw of him. I scooped up Brownie, left the backdoor open, and returned to finish my bath. Hopefully his brain damage wasn't severe and he found his way outside.
The moment when we both froze, he wondered whether he should claw through me, and I wondered whether it might be a very bad plan to combat a squirrel whilst wet and naked. That moment provided me with quite a bit of adrenaline.
Up to that point, I'd been feeling very sleepy, having spent the night sniffling and sneezing. Suddenly I wasn't sleepy anymore and was able to do homework until midnight. It's a good thing too, since I woke up at 7:30 this morning and turned my homework in at 4:30, half an hour before the deadline. I had a cold, but I hadn't procrastinated. Thank you for the adrenaline homework fairy! I hope you're not rotting in my basement.
This page, and 26 of its buddies, comprised my weekly quantum mechanics homework. I'm pleased with this bit, because I discovered a way to save a great deal of space. Integrating all those terms from right to left saved me from another page of calculations.
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