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Quantify Your Life!

For those times when critical thinking is just not an option

As the semester frantically winds to a close and even the most stubborn of last spring’s leaves flutter to the ground, I sit here on my bed staring at my four-year-old toe ring and wondering how to best take stock of the year. I turned to the Internet for some assistance on the matter, and though it failed to provide the precise blueprint for my inventory, it did serve to inspire.

The latest string of Internet questionnaires (“memes”) that have graced my monitor have consisted mostly of questions that I wouldn’t answer in such a public forum. Instead, I will devise my own list especially tailored to our lives. Grab a pen and join in the fun! And if you know the etymology of “meme,” please shoot me an email. Here I present to you this year’s stats, divided into easily digestible categories. (Who says humanities people can’t do math?)

Academic pursuits

1. Number of theorists with whose names and major works you can claim familiarity: six.

2. Number of said theorists who would recognize their ideas after your articulation: maybe an aggregate total of one.

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Campus Issues

1. Number of Harvard-Radcliffe Women’s Centers desired: one.

2. Number of Harvard-Radcliffe Women’s Centers proposed: one.

3. Number of Harvard-Radcliffe Women’s Centers built: still waiting for the final count.

Culture and Entertainment

1. Number of bad and offensive films seen at full nighttime price: only one! Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason. I offer myself as the sacrificial lamb; don’t see it.

2. Number of nights per week watching the WB: one. I will not divulge which.

Culinary matters

1. Number of calories consumed: assuming an average of 2000 per day for a year, 730,000. If they were all consumed in soymilk, I would have subsisted on twenty glasses of soymilk a day.

2. Number of animals killed for the sake of my consumption: zero!

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