This is what I look like when I think about colon cleansing

Seen at sltrib.com.

Game Theory is awesome

From this week's homework:

Suppose there are k snee[t]ches born with stars and k ≤ n. Now suppose Sylvester Mcmonkey Mcbean charges a price of p to either get a star removed or added. Assume that 0 < p < 1. So if a snee[t]ch decides to add a star (if born without one) or remove a star (if born with one), then p is subtracted from his/her payoff. Find all the Nash Equilibria.

Grr

I was standing in line in the Institute cultural hall, waiting to buy lunch for a dollar. A sister missionary comes in, hushes the crowd, and indicates a young woman who would be asking a blessing on the food. "Gentlemen, take off your hats," she requested, apparently oblivious to the fact that the person giving the prayer was wearing a baseball cap substantively identical to those many of the men wore. She prayed, and I noted aloud that she had been wearing a hat. While a couple of males near me in the line agreed that this was silly, a girl near us piped up with "well, girls are just special that way."

I'm sorry, but no. If we're going to use the Pauline pronouncement that it is a shame for a woman to pray with her head uncovered, we should (a) require women to wear hats while praying and (b) forbid them to speak in church. There's no reason to reject one rule from Paul while keeping another.

Perhaps this tradition made more sense in an era when women's hats were considerably different from men's hats, but now when the most popular style of headwear for both genders is the baseball cap, there's no reason not to ask all people to take their hats off during a prayer.

For Taylor Kerby, another awkward moment

Tonight I went to a rehearsal of John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls, which was held in downtown Phoenix. I have nowhere to park in downtown Phoenix. So I decided to park somewhere in Tempe and ride the light rail there. Mostly out of habit (and also due to the fact that I couldn't find the Park and Ride), I parked near Michael's apartment. This was my first mistake. You see, a couple of other people in the choir live in the same apartment complex. I knew this; in fact, one of them had previously seen me walking to the complex and inquired if I lived there. It's kind of awkward to explain that, no, I don't live there, but I park there sometimes because my friend lives there.

The trip to the rehearsal passed uneventfully, but on the way back, I was the only other person to get off at that stop. This led to another inquiry about whether I lived at Rancho Las Palmas, to which I again replied no. Of course, my car was parked right across the street from said complex, and I didn't want to have to explain why I was following them home when I didn't live there. So I did what any reasonable person would do: I walked the opposite direction. After a couple of traffic cycles, I figured the coast was clear, and proceeded on my way to the apartment. Everything seemed under control.

Then disaster struck. As I rounded the final corner, I heard the voices of the two other choir members who had gotten off at Dorsey Lane. I couldn't very well walk over to my car in front of them after conspicuously walking the opposite direction at the stop. So I did what any reasonable person would do: I ran back up the street. After waiting a while longer, I again proceeded down the road. They were still there, talking by a car. Apparently they didn't both live there. The street was fairly dark and my car was on the opposite side from theirs, so I snuck over to my car. I didn't want them to see me, so I did what any reasonable person would do: I entered from the passenger side door. This way, my truck was between me and them, so hopefully they wouldn't see me. As a bonus, my dome light is nonfunctional, so I did this all under cover of darkness. Then I buckled my seatbelt, turned the car on, switched on the headlights, shifted into gear, pulled into the apartment complex entrance, backed out the opposite direction, and drove away.

I really hope they didn't notice it was me.

Meditation and proxy confirmation and the rosary

While in Nauvoo, I sat through roughly 200 iterations of the proxy confirmation prayer: "(Name), in the name of Jesus Christ we lay our hands upon your head for and in behalf of (other name), who is dead, and confirm you a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and say unto you, receive the Holy Ghost. Amen." Listening to this repetition of a set prayer reminded me of the rosary.

As one prays the rosary, a series of repeated prayers including the Hail Mary and the Lord's Prayer, one is to contemplate the prescribed mystery: perhaps the virgin birth, or the resurrection. I always thought that wouldn't be particularly conducive to meditation. Perhaps I was wrong. 200 confirmation prayers repeated did assist in keeping my mind on the subject of the Holy Ghost and confirmation. They also assisted Jorgen in falling asleep. Perhaps if I had been vocalizing the prayers it would have been different, but I'm not sure whether that would have aided or hindered my meditation.

I also found it interesting that even though we Mormons often rail against the "vain repetitions" of Catholic prayer, we did what could be interpreted in the same way while barreling through names to be confirmed.

Thoughts

I looked at the sacrament meeting program today, and noticed the section on the back listing names and addresses of missionaries currently serving from our ward. Not too far in the future, my name and address will be on that list. I wonder who will make use of it. I almost certainly wouldn't. I think I've written my grandparents, who have gone on three missions, a grand total of four times. And if I do that poorly at communicating with such close family, it's easy to extrapolate my record at writing to other people: zilch. Even people I know and am on friendly terms with I write nothing to.

All this is to say that I probably don't deserve to be written to while on my mission. If the measure we mete will be meted to us again, it seems I'm due for approximately two letters. Maybe I'll get one each Christmas. Or maybe save one for my 21st birthday. It's so hard to choose. So I'm now terrified I won't receive any appreciable mail while serving in Fiji or Finland or the Falklands. (I really doubt there's a Falklands mission. Really, really doubt it.)

Of course, there is a simple solution to this: deathbed repentance. I could simply unleash a deluge of missives on every missionary I know. But I don't know where to start. ("Hey, Robson. I'm writing you because I'm deathly terrified no one will write me when I go and I don't want to ruin my karma. Sooo, um, how's the...work...going, Elder?") Even then, if I'm writing for the express motive of building up correspondence karma, I doubt it will be very effective. So I'm going to have to do something like write letters of my own accord, because I genuinely want to know what's going on and think they want to hear from me. Dang it. That's hard.

I don't start conversations. I'm bad at it, and it seems inconsistent with my personality. I think someone suddenly receiving a raft of epistles from me would be somewhat surprised and rather frightened. And I really can't think of anything to talk about beyond the standard "how's the work?" Which is generic and lame. No missionary wants to receive a letter asking that. I certainly don't. But what else is there to talk about with a missionary? "So, gone on any dates recently?" "How many companions have you gotten to hate your guts yet?" "Have you shaken the dust off your feet at someone who's rejected you yet?" "How many evil spirits have you had to cast out?"

Perhaps I'm being overly self-conscious. Maybe those would be good questions to ask. I'd like receiving them. But it's still hard to hold a conversation, even over a medium such as the postal service, with someone I don't normally talk much to. So have pity on me and write me letters on my mission, even if I don't write you any.