Two Topics- Dogs and Math

I wanted to write about both these topics, but neither of them really justify a full post, so I'm combining them in a sort of "Tuesday Irrelevant Topic Day!" mish-mash. I'm writing them because I like to take a break from all the serious topics occasionally. S0, I'll start with math.

A few of you might have picked up on the clues, that I mention math often, and am planning to minor in it, and rightly concluded that I like math. You may think that I'm crazy or weird for taking two math courses, one second-year differential equations and one third-year calculus course. What you don't know, though, is that math classes are my favourite university courses. The reason I'm majoring in chem is because I find the material more interesting, and I prefer chem lectures to math lectures the vast majority of the time. Chem unfortunately involves labs and tedious coursework, while math has no labs and I often enjoy doing math assignments.

Yes, I like doing math homework. I don't like doing repetitive algebraic manipulation where I know how to solve the problem and it's just a matter of bitch-slapping the equation into its proper form, but I do love being presented with a question I can't solve, trying several approaches, and finally figuring it out and arriving at the correct answer. I don't take pride in most of my other coursework, since it's all fairly boring and doesn't require much creativity, but I am proud of my solutions in math. Basically I'm a huge nerd.

Now, dogs. Dogs have very little to do with math, and if you try to find a connection I will get angry because that's not what math or dogs are for. Unlike humans, it's perfectly acceptable to discriminate against groups of dogs based on physical characteristics, because their physical characteristics vary so much and determine what we like about a breed. My favourite dogs are dogs that are average in size and appearance. I don't like wiry racing dogs or powerful aggressive dogs as much as medium-strength ones. I dislike most tiny dogs because they're loud, disobedient, and not as much fun to play with, and huge dogs are just too much dog to handle. I find exotic dogs or boxer-like dogs less appealing than Labradors, Spaniels, German Shepherds, or other more normal dogs. Average dogs are playful, not aggressive; big enough to run around with but not big enough to pull me around; and appealing rather than odd. Interestingly enough when you make an "average" person by combining many people's faces, the composite is usually more attractive than each individual face.