Friday, September 10, 2004
University Education at the Laundry!
Every trip to the laundry is an educational experience for me. I learn new physical and chemical laws which every person just has to discover. The Ig-Nobel prize winning discovery I made... I now know that pens when subjected through the drying process, tend to assume contorted shapes and spew out the liquids from their wombs onto the shirt you like to wear the most! I dont know why the ink has to spill onto the only shirt that you truly think you look like a hunk in. The Probability of that happenening is just so stagerringly infinitesimal, that I feel like it's some sort of divine punishment for my sins.
This was my first transition from the uniprocessor laundry of Robin 2(old apt) to the multiprocessor world of the Laundromat. I realised something about my native intelligence... that I really don't possess it. All of it is borrowed or acquired. But the more I observe how other people do their laundry, the more I learn how some old people apply advanced computer science theory in doing their laundry without even knowing it. There was this old lady there (who was probably doing her son's laundry) who would give even the best Operating Systems a run for their money... she was scheduling her drying jobs so well. She came ten minutes after I, and left ten minutes earlier. I'd like to believe that her son is the smartest man in the universe for making his mum do his laundry, but then again look at all the wonderful things he missed.
Another person I learnt something from was this fat guy who got his laundry in a suitcase, did it and then folded his clothes neatly into the suitcase and scooted off into the distance. I, on the other hand, was struggling with this stupid laundry bag that had become cumbersome because I hadn't done my laundry for so long.
One can truly learn so much at the laundry, from arithmetic to chemistry to physics to computer science... a few hours there, worth a few more in the classroom.
Every trip to the laundry is an educational experience for me. I learn new physical and chemical laws which every person just has to discover. The Ig-Nobel prize winning discovery I made... I now know that pens when subjected through the drying process, tend to assume contorted shapes and spew out the liquids from their wombs onto the shirt you like to wear the most! I dont know why the ink has to spill onto the only shirt that you truly think you look like a hunk in. The Probability of that happenening is just so stagerringly infinitesimal, that I feel like it's some sort of divine punishment for my sins.
This was my first transition from the uniprocessor laundry of Robin 2(old apt) to the multiprocessor world of the Laundromat. I realised something about my native intelligence... that I really don't possess it. All of it is borrowed or acquired. But the more I observe how other people do their laundry, the more I learn how some old people apply advanced computer science theory in doing their laundry without even knowing it. There was this old lady there (who was probably doing her son's laundry) who would give even the best Operating Systems a run for their money... she was scheduling her drying jobs so well. She came ten minutes after I, and left ten minutes earlier. I'd like to believe that her son is the smartest man in the universe for making his mum do his laundry, but then again look at all the wonderful things he missed.
Another person I learnt something from was this fat guy who got his laundry in a suitcase, did it and then folded his clothes neatly into the suitcase and scooted off into the distance. I, on the other hand, was struggling with this stupid laundry bag that had become cumbersome because I hadn't done my laundry for so long.
One can truly learn so much at the laundry, from arithmetic to chemistry to physics to computer science... a few hours there, worth a few more in the classroom.
