The Fool On The Hill - by The Beatles

Day after day, alone on a hill
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him
They can see that he's just a fool
And he never gives an answer

But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning 'round

Well on his way, head in a cloud
The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud
But nobody ever hears him
Or the sound he appears to make
And he never seems to notice

But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning 'round


And nobody seems to like him
They can tell what he wants to do
And he never shows his feelings

But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning 'round

'Round and 'round and 'round
He never listens to them
He knows that they're the fools
They don't like him

The fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning 'round

Oh...'round and 'round and 'round...

Cookbook

I was thinking about the cookbooks I have and a I realized I don't have one on Indian food. I need to remedy that! Come to think of it, I rarely use the half-dozen or so cookbooks I already have...I just like collecting the reference material so I have something to work from when I improvise. To me cooking is like painting or any other form of art; once you know the principles of a style you can stop obeying the rules, the "recipe". And every now and again you just have to try something outrageously different! Like a chedder and honey sandwich...I think I'll go have one right now.

From Sleep to Hibernation

Mid-November has been the worst time of the year for me, I think. When October comes around I can feel the change in seasons but when November arrives I'll wake up one morning and feel completely disconnected; it's like I ought to be hibernating in a cave somewhere.

Last week was pretty bad: tired, unmotivated, irregular sleep, diminished appetite, trouble focusing. Pretty much textbook depression. I need to get back to work on my paper. I wonder if I can use myself as a primary source?

This is a research paper I'm doing on hibernation in mammals and how it relates to seasonal affective disorder in humans. Essentially my premise is that depression is the body's physiological mechanism for decreasing energy requirements in response to environmental cues; a kind of "fight-or-flight" response that helps an animal conserve food and water when they may be scarce (or it thinks they will be scarce).

Circannual patterns like the length of day, the environmental temperature, and the availability of water seem to be important factors in influencing sleep (torpor and hibernation being "evolutionary" extensions of regular sleep) and metabolic functions. Anyway this is still all just an academic theory that I need to finish researching and put on paper. Outside of the specific topic of seasonal affective disorder there may be difficulty applying such hypothesis. The exact mechanisms that trigger other instances of clinical depression are pretty much a matter of conjecture since individual cases respond differently to varying treatments or combinations of treatment (psychotherapy being a more-or-less non-pharmacological form of care).

So hopefully this coming week will be better than last...