This piece always makes me smile

"How high the ocean, how high the moon
I don't know the words of this song, but imma gonna sing 'em anyway
I hope you enjoy it, hope you enjoy it.
Ella Fitzgerald sings this song real real real crazy
...that's the way she sings it.
So imma gonna try to sing it that way for you
So here goes..."

-Sarah Vaughan-

PS: How high was Sarah?

Focus 101.

If brains could solidify mine probably has. Into an uneven lump of gray matter as dry and meaningless as corrugated cardboard. It is a crisis of the worst kind, the kind that it (the brain) is itself conscious of, and I say the worst kind because it does nothing despite being conscious of its shortcomings.

Consider this.

Every day I resolve to concentrate. To shut out all other noise and delightful distractions in place of a secluded mental isolation in which all the brilliant thoughts discreetly hiding within my condensing layers of gray matter will come out with a bang and a eureka and prove themselves worthy of my academic leanings. But no. It is like faith. I know I have it, but its manifestation digresses habitually.

Today I succeeded in concentrating. Laptop closed, facebook untouched, earphones kept away, random sneezes, whisperings, and passersby ignored, for maybe 6-8 hours. It was just me and... algebra. It is a welcome break from law courses. Algebra is therapeutic. It provides answers that are either right or wrong. Once you begin you cannot stop, cannot let go, until you find the answer, because you know the truth is out there, at your very fingertips, if you would only persevere. The Professor of this course - Environmental Economics - is also reassuring because when you ask him a question he does not bounce the question back to the entire classroom to illicit endless opinions with no conclusion but he instead tells you, concisely, what the answer is. It is like playing Bach after several years of trying to play like Thelonius Monk.

In fact, I can probably connect everything to jazz. The title shall be "Law Is Like Jazz: An Improvised Analysis". Abstract: In order to improvise, you need to know the chord progressions. In order to find the loopholes in the law, you need to know the law. There is no such thing as a right or wrong tune/ argument. You just know it is beautiful/ convincing when you hear it. Which reminds me I should get a transcript of that discussion between Justice O'Connor and Wynton Marsalis, "A Celebration of America", to cite from. This could be a profound theorem.

I'm digressing.

I'm digressing from my thesis, is the more appropriate big-picture conclusion. My thesis, unfortunately, is cool but has nothing to do with jazz, or algebra. Did you ever hear this (really lame) joke:

"Why did the blonde stare at the orange juice carton?"

"No idea. Why?"

"Because it said 'Concentrate'. Haha. Get it? Concentrate. "

So. I could use an orange juice.