Death by ANOVA*

You may well be asking, "where the hell have you been, Linus?"

Perhaps I can describe it best with colorful metaphors**... I was trudging through the swamp that is my statistics project, and out of nowhere, a huge linear regression came up and bit my leg off. My left leg - my FAVORITE leg - gone, just like that. Once I dragged myself back to camp, I had pretty much bled to death, and putting my open wound in the swamp water gave me a nasty case of trench foot (trench stump?). I put on a tourniquet, popped some ibuprofen and went back to work, but then a multiple correlation grabbed onto my balls like a lamprey (never wear a kilt in a swamp). I tried to pry it off with a screwdriver - no luck. I hit it with a baseball bat for a while, and when that failed, I took a cutting torch to it. So now, I'm crippled, infected with trench stump, and my balls look like they are ready to be served at the VFW's big "Rocky Mountain Oyster" feed.

That's where I've been.

At this point, my stats class is like a sucking chest wound - incredibly painful, and accompanied by a disconcerting death rattle. I am utterly lost in the lecture portion of the class, I've got no idea how to get caught back up, and the final project has spun completely out of control - it's the trifecta of math class failure. I am still curious about the outcome of the original research question I posed, but it has become a death march of sorts. It's like the 40 years in the desert, but without Moses or the manna from heaven. It makes me want to die; it's a Kevorkian project.

I've asked the professor to allow me to take an incomplete - the first I have ever considered in my academic career - so I can finish the project up in the summer. He's "thinking about it," because it will create additional paperwork for him. Or because he's a sadist. Possibly both. Regardless of his reply, right now I am focusing on getting my other classes finished up for the semester. I have a solid A in both at the moment. Assuming I get the respite from stats, I should be done with the papers for both in a week or so.

Then I could return to regular posting, get some sleep, and grow a new left leg. Good thing I'm immortal...

In other news, last week's poll indicates that a lot of you want to revolt. The question was:

The best way to solve the current economic crisis is...

You responded:

Legalize marijuana 25%
Stimulus package 0%
Regulate the markets 20%
Revolution! 40%
Another world war 0%
Legalize marijuana... wait... 0%
Dig up F.D.R. 15%

OK, so I'm proud of you - no one voted for another world war - but no love for the stimulus package? I know it's not the sexy solution, but let's give it a chance to do its thing before we give up on it completely. I suggest that we allow it a year or two - if things are still shitty, then we call shenanigans. That gives us time to plan a proper revolution.

We'll need pitchforks and torches... a big red flag (Viva la Résistance!)... maybe some matching t-shirts... I'm not good at this group organizing thing. Does someone want to be in charge of planning?


*ANOVA means "analysis of variance" in statwonk talk...
**I know those aren't, strictly speaking, metaphors. Um...don't correct me - it sickens me.