Hell Over. New Hell Starts Monday.

I got through my week and a half with probable damage only to my thermodynamics grade (and perhaps my psyche, but that's completely FUBAR anyway). I've still only gotten the classical mechanics exam back, but I'm fairly confident I did OK on abstract algebra and real analysis. I didn't do that great on thermo -- maybe a 70.

There are two weeks remaining in the semester -- one of classes and one of finals. I seriously need to get caught up on thermo. I probably have no chance for an A now, but I need to avoid complete disaster.

Grad school applications are going slowly. I just can't seem to get my personal statement completed, but I WILL get it done this weekend.

A Week and a Half of Hell

I'm in the middle of the worst eleven-day stretch of my back-to-college career. From last weekend through next Tuesday I will have taken four exams (three take-homes that have taken about 8-10 hours apiece and one in-class in thermodynamics) and done about seven homework sets.

So far I've turned in two take-homes and gotten one back (classical mechanics, 95). I just got a real analysis take-home today (after turning homework sets on Wednesday and today, and having another due Monday). I won't start on that until Monday, though, since I need to spend the weekend on thermodynamics, in which I have an in-class exam Monday morning.

After Tuesday, I get a break for Thanksgiving. Thank God. But of course I need to use most of it for studying for finals, and I'll no doubt have plenty of homework to do.

Quote of the Week

"Democracy is the theory that the people deserve to get what they want -- and they deserve to get it good and hard!" -- HL Mencken

I Think Kerry May Be Toast

It looks to me like Kerry is done for. He has definitely lost Florida, and Bush seems to be holding on to a lead in Ohio, though it's narrowed a little (to about 124,000 out of 4.44 million, with 80% precincts reporting). Certainly Kerry can't survive the loss of Ohio, and if Kerry wins it, Bush still has realistic scenarios to win the election.

Vote Update`

Things apparently haven't gone as strongly for Kerry as the exit polls indicated. It doesn't look to me like Kerry will win Florida, and Ohio is very much in doubt as well. All the swing states are very close, and none of them have been called.

With all the absentee and provisional ballots, it may be later in the week before anything is known.

My Other Grandmother

I got off the phone with my mother a few minutes ago. My father's mother may have gotten better over the weekend, but this morning, more or less out of the blue, my mother's mother died. I knew she was mentally pretty much gone, but had no idea that she was so bad off physically.

Exit Polls

The buzz on the Internet today is that exit polling is showing Kerry ahead in just about all the swing states.

In particular, exit polling is showing Kerry up 51-48 nationally, up by 3 in Wisconsin and by 1 in Ohio and Florida. At 5PM Zogby called the whole election solidly for Kerry, 311 to 213 electoral votes.

If it's true that Kerry is doing much better than expected, it's apparently because pollsters failed to accurately account for a lot of new Democratic-leaning voters. I wonder if the results in the House and Senate races will be as surprising.

Movie Review: I Heart Huckabees F

BOY, this sucked. I would say it was the worst movie I've ever seen, except that I'm not sure that it qualifies, because, while it had some of the surface qualities of a movie, it somehow definitely was not a movie.

It did involve actors speaking lines on the screen. I do remember that much before I nodded off. What the hell they were talking about, or why, completely escaped me. And unlike a few other films that I didn't "get," I'm quite certain that the problem wasn't me. There simply wasn't anything to get.

This environmentalist guy keeps seeing this big African exchange student, so he decides the coincidence must mean something. Therefore he hires "existential detectives" Lilly Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman, who generally act like freaks. They follow him around everywhere to observe him. And Jude Law is in it as an evil department-store executive. And Mark Wahlberg is a fireman. And the fireman introduces them to another existential detective, who doesn't like the Tomlin and Hoffman characters.

That's pretty much the movie. If it were a movie. Which it definitely wasn't, somehow.

Election

I can't believe how close and how complicated this election is. The polls are essentially useless, as most of the swing states are within the margin of error. Turnout is apparently going to be atypically high, which adds additional uncertainty to the poll numbers.

There are all sorts of lawsuits flying already. States are now required to accept provisional ballots from people who don't appear on the rolls, meaning final totals aren't going to be known until those are all sorted out.

Colorado has a ballot initiative to change from a winner-take-all allocation of electors to a system that would split them (based on congressional district or proportionately or something). The provision would apply to this election. There are already lawsuits over its constitutionality.

A Bush elector in West Virginia is threatening to withhold his vote for Bush. Apparently nobody checked with him to see who he supported before naming him an elector.

Some polls are showing that Kerry has the lead in the popular vote nationwide. Good news, considering that the undecideds should break for Kerry. However, at least some of the polls apparently already assume that 90% of the undecideds will go to Kerry.

Despite my loathing of Bush, I've actually been undecided as to whether I'll be able to vote for Kerry. I've written before that I think a Kerry presidency will be fairly disasterous. He may well be another Jimmy Carter, discrediting progressivism in general, and leading to many years of Republican domination after. I wouldn't go so far as to vote for Bush, but whether or not I was going to show up for Kerry was, until recently, an open question.

However, I've finally decided that Bush must lose, no matter the cost. He was elected as a self-professed "uniter, not a divider," but has governed in the most divisive way possible, catering to the extreme right wing. It is essential that this strategy fail, and therefore I'll be holding my nose, going to the polls, however long it takes, and voting for Kerry.

In any case, this election is a mystery. For every argument that says one candidate has an edge, there's another that says the opposite. Kerry does seem to have a little momentum going into the home stretch, though. Lets hope it's enough.