"... the way my feelings arose..."

For the past few days, I'd been really screwed up... I was generally low-energy, couldn't really focus terribly well, and mostly just wanted to sleep. Today, I'm back up and ready to go :) I got up at 0700, showered, went to Woody's, and did some Combo homework that involved figuring out how many different ways one could arrange 10 men and 10 women around a table, such that they're alternating, gender-wise, and such that Mr. and Mrs. Smith aren't sitting next to each other. There are rather a lot of ways to do this -- 2 * (9 * 9!) * (10! - 9!) of them, if I'm not horribly, horribly mistaken. We'll have to try it out and count. Anybody up for some sitting-around-a-table?

I'm feeling better :) I'll be more interesting and active and bouncy, starting Right Now. We'll see how energetic I am tonight after Running Wreck beats the snot out of me, w00t :)

"Carrying the one is easy to do..."

You know, I think I'm horribly, horribly mistaken... I'll need to think about this a bit more. I haven't accounted for the case where Mr. and Mrs. Smith aren't linearly next to each other, but at the ends of the ordering -- they'd be next to each other at the table, because it's round. Also, I'd thought about it that we're forming 10 couples, and that the two Smith-containing couples can't be right next to each other... but that's only a problem in half the cases, depending on which member of the couples sits where. This is a very subtle problem, hrm...

Combinatorics is hilarious -- just wanting to know how many of something brings up glorious images of being asked this sort of question, thinking about it for a while, and then handing over this gargantuan number with no explanation at the end -- and the idea of having a class taught by an Eastern-European fellow with appropriate semi-lilting accent (he's really good) is endlessly amusing... brings back memories of Sesame Street. "74,504,322 ways to arrange people around a table! Hah hah hah hah..."