"The thing I most love about deadlines is the whooshing sound they make as they go past."

--Douglas Adams

In an earlier entry I recounted all the many brain-related activities on my to-do list, and how they were totally undone. Funny thing about to-do lists. Once you start on them, you find yourself compelled to keep going until at least a hearty foothold has been established in Mt. ResponsibleAdult. Taxes? Done. NIH proposal? Written. Quiz? Taken (the correct answer was transcortical motor aphasia, btw).

Western Aphasia Battery? Administered. Although being that my copy of the test resides in a busy clinic, bits of the test had mysteriously disappeared between Friday afternoon and Monday morning; personally, I'll be making the case that this experience more closely mimics administering the test in a busy hospital, where anything you set down on a flat surface is apparently fair game. I've had lab kits walk away, shipping labels, shipping boxes and, in one notable instance, my pager. Didn't really mind that last one so much.

That's about it, really. I had another quiz yesterday, and a paper due tomorrow (the NIH proposal didn't get quite the warm reception I was hoping for. Back to the drawing board.) And the French aphasia articles remain incontrovertibly French.

In addition to that, other items have leapt into the fray: write another proposal, mail the Deadly Meringue's parcel, buy a new winter jacket, write up the results of the (abbreviated) WAB. And as I was writing all these new items down, I started to wonder about the physics behind to-do lists. It appears to me that here is nature's own source of inexhaustible potential energy. As items are crossed off (ie converted to kinetic energy) new ones appear without prompting, not only taking their place but actually taking up more places than the original list. It's like using up items on the list actually produces a greater number of items.

And voila, I have solved one of physics' oldest problems. Is this not worth an A in Aphasia?

(I swear this whole entry made sense right around six hours ago. Now? Not so much. Let's move on.)

My island people continue to be obsessed with tea, with sometimes unfortunate results. I give you, the PG Tips commemorative diamond teabag. Or rather, I don't give it to you, because we've only just started seeing each other, and isn't this all moving a little fast, and don't get me wrong I think you're awesome, but... And anyway, read the fine print. The damn thing's gone on tour with a QE2 lookalike.

In case any of this has caused confusion, I apologize (with a zed, bitches) and refer you to the British Tea Council. Their slogan, as illustrated by their homepage: "Tea! It's Tits in a Cup!".

I know. I should stick to aphasia.