Pass the liquid crack, please.

As my third pot (yes, pot) of coffee for today brews, here are some things I think you readers should know.

1. At this moment, it is exactly 11:43pm and I am just now sitting back down to work on my thesis, having finally finished fixing our group case study project almost singlehandedly. Again. Doing so took a grand total of about five hours. In economic terms, those five hours of my life which I shall never, ever have back - and which I will now spend working on my thesis into the wee hours of the morning - are what we refer to as "opportunity cost." There is no better teacher of this particular lesson than sleep deprivation.

2. The time is now 11:47pm, and I just received an email from a group member (see number 1) informing me that we're missing yet another piece of the project. This leaves me in the position of making a choice. Option 1 is to take the chance that said group member will finish this piece tomorrow morning before turning in the project, as promised. Option 2 is to not take that risk and simply do it myself. In economic terms, this is called "hedging" risk. It's usually done in currency trading and is usually expensive. In this case, the cost (opportunity cost!) is more lost sleep. And lost thesis time.

3. I am going to go and pour myself some coffee now while I ask myself why I do these things.