The second semester of chemistry started three weeks ago. It’s a lot math-ier than the first semester was, which in turn was way more full of math (and physics) than my biology course was a couple of years ago. Two things that haven’t happened in 30+ years have happened in the last three weeks:

• The phrase “Damn this would be easier if I could remember calculus” actually came out of my mouth, and
• Logarithms.

I’m not sure I understand logarithms, mind you, but this is the first time in my life I have been able to reliably solve problems using them. Not coincidentally, last semester was the first time I remember having taken the time to read the instructions for a calculator. Must “read and follow instructions” turn out to be the solution to all my life’s mysteries?

In somewhat related news, the aforementioned chemistry class finally forced me to do what 18 months of trying to work and study in federal employ using a Chromebook could not; I got a Windows laptop for home use. Technically Dino Spouse got me the laptop as a Valentine’s Day offering, but that amounted to him handing me a debit card while I muttered about the uselessness of the Chromebook Excel app for graphing and searched for a laptop that would run actual software at a reasonable rate of speed without draining the family coffers. I know I could have just done the calculating and graphics exercise for class in Google Sheets, but nope, I finally surrendered.

(I also met Soldatik‘s girlfriend and painted a couple of walls in our home and cleaned the heck out of everything, and all of that was lovely. But math.)