Even the hairs? Even the blinks?

So. After a no-holds-barred debate in my head over whether writing stuff on a blog constitutes a desperate plea for attention or a sociable and friendly way of sharing my thoughts with others, here I am. My debate came to no useful conclusions. And hey, maybe I am desperate for attention. I'm not ashamed.
I know everyone gets songs stuck in their heads (we all do, don't we? Now I feel a weird urge to go look up cognitive studies to see if anyone knows what part of the brain causes earworms. And by extension if there are people who are relatively normal but can't remember music. The perils of writing stuff while on the internet are great indeed). But do you ever get phrases stuck in your head? I do. Bits of poetry ("whose woods are these I think I know - his house is in the village though"), which I guess is ok because it's close to music anyway, and proverbs and just general other stuff I've read (A Song of Ice and Fire is terrible for this. "What is dead may never die." How am I supposed to go cheerily about my day with that phrase bouncing around in my head?). Now that I think of it, this could be a great study tool if you could manage to get something you were supposed to memorise stuck in your brain.
Anyway. Last week I had "even the hairs on the head are numbered"  following me around and popping into my brain every couple hours. This falls into the vague proverb-y category of phrases. Vaguely Bibical? And yes. According to a snappy little google moment, this phrase is in the Bible not once but twice (Luke 12:7 and Matthew 10:30, if you're wondering, fun fact). In the religious context the idea, I think, is that God is so omniscient and cares so much about you that He knows the number even of your tiny little hairs. Which is nice.
But the phrase "even the hairs on your head are numbered" got me thinking in kind of a different direction. Because the hairs on your head are numbered whether God knows it or not (and no, I'm not going to wade into debate on that point). There are a finite number of them. Just like there are a finite number of:

•  Mosquitoes in the world
• Times you've eaten bacon for breakfast
• Times you've eaten breakfast at all
• Books you've read while eating stuff
• Books you've read at all
• Words you've read 
•  Times you've blinked
• And so on and on and on. 

Ironically, there are possibly an infinite number of things that can be finitely counted. Or on the other end of the spectrum (or is it the same end of the spectrum viewed in a slightly different way?), there are also apparently mathematical philosophers who advance the argument that nothing is infinite, Cantor and his infinity of infinities be damned.
This is not the first time I've ever thought about this. I have a habit of setting up really trivial math problems to solve in my head on long car trips. I swear this is not as math nerdy as it sounds. I have a lot of weird road trip games to play in my head and the language-based ones are way nerdier. Anyway. Since I am far from a math savant, my problems tend to follow the line of "How many words did I submit in academic writing over the past year?" (Cop-out answer: too many) or "How many books have I read in my life?" And every time I think about how many things theoretically have a number, it amazes me.
There are all these enormous numbers that we'll never know and yet exist and make up the facts of your life. You've read all those words yourself. Those hairs are attached to your head. And you'll never know how many of them there are. For some reason that seems totally mind-blowing to me. It's just...cool. I can't decide if I'm comforted by the idea that there is a number for all these things (or do numbers and math in fact exist without human knowledge of them? I watched a Youtube video about this today...) or if I'm scared of the weird sense of looming mortality that this gives me. Because obviously, if there are a finite number of breaths I've taken so far, then inevitably there are a finite number of breaths I will take ever. Maybe this is why websites like this one exist, so obsessively counting and quantifying types can document their lives in the same way that more literary types use diaries - all in our human attempt to fend off that terrible sense of looming DEATH.
Well, that ended cheerily. Isn't math and thinking about existential dilemmas fun? Maybe I'll be a mathematical philosopher in my next life.
Smiling? Grimacing? Calculating?
Charlotte

Scoring the World

Haven't you ever wished for a way to quantify a person's awesomeness? Well then, the authors of this blog are proud to present the Charlotte and Sarah Universal Point System (with bonus sassy input from Candace Farrar, AKA Kandace Pharrar when she is in sorority mode - but that's a story for another post). In an age gone by, in a land called Strathcopia (our high school stompin' ground), we felt the same need, and had far too much free time. Therefore, in the wilds of Social Studies 10-1AP, a point system was born (actually several different point systems, but for the sake of this post, we'll call it ONE point system with many facets).
First came BBPs, a way of rating one's British-ness. It is universally acknowledged that a person in possession of a high level of Britivity is downright awesome. BBP stands for Bonus British Points. We recognize that this seems to imply that everyone has a baseline level of British, but really, the "bonus" just makes this a better acronym. The way a person might earn BBPs would be to use British colloquialisms non-chalantly in an average conversation. Such phrases may include, but are not limited to: faucet, jolly good, brilliant, rubbish or petticoat. A subset of BBPs examines an individual's fashion sense. At the time of their inception, examples of British-type fashion would include: bowties, ascots/ascot-style hats, three piece suits, peacoats and bowler hats.  Now that in this modern age such fashions are depressingly common, earning fashion BBPs could be confused with being "hipster." It is imperative that one uses caution when assigning these points. Another important distinction to make is that a person who is verifiably British does not automatically receive BBPs; (s)he would have to exhibit insane feats of eccentricity to score points.  The epitome of one with high BBP status is Sir Richard Branson. 
AGB (Acts of Gentlemanly Behaviour) were next assigned. This is a particularly good category, as it can be applied to average fellows (not every fellow can aspire to earn BBPs, but AGB points are readily achievable with just a modicum of civility). Examples of AGB-worthy behaviour include: letting a classmate use a piece of lab equipment before you, holding open doors, pulling out chairs, helping people pick up dropped books and helping someone who has had an embarrassing moment. In certain circumstances, girls can also earn AGB points; however, this point system was initially developed as a tool for evaluating a male for potential dating.
FBFPs, or Facebook faux pas, are a substantially less positive system for identifying those moments we all suffer: Facebook chat failures. We can all remember a time that we hastily pressed the enter key and subsequently sent a non-sensical snippet of unfinished text or uncalled-for emoticon (accidental winky-face anyone?), and of course there are always poorly thought out conversation exit strategies to consider ("well...I have to go wash my dog now. Bye!"). FBFPs may be a mark of shame, but they are also an easy way of acknowledging your mistake with a bit of humour and without causing further awkwardness. Here is an example conversation in which use of the FBFP is a great solution to all (or some of) your chat woes:

Sarah Nason
Pahaha the thing you spend the least time on is always the funniest
And I mean that TIMES TWO!

Charlotte Forss
You switch into caps lock and you no longer make sense.

Sarah Nason
Hahahah when I sent that the first time it showed up as me sending the first part twice! Damn you fb, you make me fbfp!

Another type of points that emerged were YAPS and YADS. These two highly related categories are probably not very useful for the average person's life because they refer directly to no one other than Sarah Nason. YAPS are You Are Pleasing to Sarah and YADS are You Are Displeasing to Sarah. But one could easily substitute Sarah with their own name though, so do not disregard these acronyms completely! An easily explained system, you assign a YAP_ point whenever someone does something you like and you assign a YAD_ whenever someone does something that you dislike. Also, it should be noted that "you are pleasing to me" is a very creepy and potentially villainous thing to say, so if you are assigning a YAP_ you can also do evil hand gestures to drive your point home.

Hopefully this helps you blog readers in your judgmental exploits, much as it has helped us.

Hoping you didn't assign a YAD_ to this post,
Charlotte, Sarah and Candace