It's all over, baby. I've just finished what would have been my last day of classes of School Mark XV-and-a-half. I say "would have been" because I actually didn't have any. (They were cancelled...honest!)

It might seem perverse, but I like the exam stretch much more than the school year...it's much more freeform. I like how I can sleep, eat, at my pleasure. I like how I can just drop in on profs and talk to them whenever I want, and just sit alone and work problems for hours--it's extremely relaxing.

I knew things were out of hand when I awoke to a dark room, clock burning 4:55, and had no idea which 12-hour span it was referring to.

I've been working odd 12-hour days as I try to finish all of my work for end of term and also to try to tuck some sleep in when I can. I've been resting for a couple hours, twice a day, and this has evidently been for the worse.

Enough (pseudo-)heavy stuff. The Sheppard Subway opens for business in about five hours, and I am thrilled. I'm addicted to subways for reasons that I have never quite figured out, and the fact that Toronto is getting its first new Subway line in 30 years is exciting to me.

So sure, it only has five stops and doesn't go anywhere. It still looks very cool (I always am tempted to eat the rainbow-coloured machinery behind the glass block wall at Leslie), and when (if) it runs to Scarborough Centre, things will be interesting.

I just had a thought of no particular relevance to anything i am doing.

I noticed that if someone has a minor flaw of character, people tend to fault them for it, thinking them weak-willed. On the other hand, if someone has the same vice, but in a much more severe form, people think they can't help it--and, thus, they're blameless.

Think: an somewhat impulsive person is pathetic and weak, but an extremely impulsive person is blameless--they simply suffer from OCD.

Similarly, if someone went postal and shot his coworkers, people would search high and low for the childhood abuse, or for other mitigating, "explanatory" circumstances. However, if that same person kept a handle on his rage and was simply sullen to his colleagues all the time, well, then he'd be just a jerk.

Now, people might be tempted to argue that others are only blameless when their condition is "pathological", but this is obviously circular. There is certainly no a priori reason why mild and severe forms of the same malaise should be separate--it is only a matter of definition that they are.