I am too much a geek for my own good, or anyone else's. I went this evening to the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Baily circus with two of my female friends as a last-ditch "let's be little kids again before we all leave for college and must be sophisticated young ladies"
(::snorts::: 'sophisticated' and 'lady', describe *me*? hah...)
But anyways that was our premise for being at the circus, to recapture some of that innocent joy and childlike wonder...

All was fine and dandy, we pigged out on cotton candy and snow cones. Then came the main act (in three parts cuz its a three-ring. One act was the "human comet" in which a guy set himself on fire then jumped from a high platform to a platform below. No big deal, it was "ooh aah" amazement and nothing more. it was the other two acts that were the problem...

The first was this strange strange vaguely pendulumish thing with weights on one end and a rotating circle like a hamster wheel. This guy performed tricks, in the cage and walking on the outside. Some of the time, he was even in a state of free-fall due to the physics of the mechanism. The second was the stock motorcyclist(s) in a sphereical cage, they ride around, up the sides and eventually upside down in something that *appears* to defy gravity. This is also fine and dandy, until i started trying to *calculate* mathematically how these things were happening. I was frantically scrambling to recall all the formulas i learned in physics, mumbling 'now inertia is *what* and the formula for torque is *which*? and what about centripetal motion?", and digging through my bag to find paper and pencil so i could *write* the things out. I even found in the bag a calculator and was prepared to *use* it. It was about this point when my friends threatened to kill me if i didn't shut up, stop acting like the geek they all know i am, and just sit back and enjoy the show. Since they gave me more cotton candy as a bribe to stop it, i did, but... that freaked me out. i know i'm geekish but i didn't realize i was *that* bad.... so that's how i scared the bejabbers out of myself tonight..

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