From now on I’ll be carrying a huge plushie rat with me (well, actually, it’s a R.O.U.S given to me in very touching circumstances (well, kind of)).

Why? Why not! But just for the record, here are some more elaborate reasons:

1. It makes people laugh. Me and my rat caused quite a number of laughs and enjoyable random talks with enjoyable random people in hallways in the one week of beta-testing. If there is a cheap way to generate laughter, it would be a shame not to use it.
2. Message: Judge by the important stuff. By walking around with a huge plushie rat, I am declaring that I can afford to be considered weird, because I wish to be judged by things other than looking weird. If people can understand this, they will judge who I am, not what I look like. If they can’t, it’s not my problem.
3. It changes who I present myself as, thereby changing who I feel like, too. I just can’t look all gloomy with a huge plushie rat in my arms, really. The image of a sad, angry, serious emo-kid that I sometimes assume when I feel I’ve failed just doesn’t go with that (probably the Universe would explode in an epic burst of laughter or something). As follows from (1), I carry the rat to bring about laughter, and I’d better stay consistent while roaming around with that.

This is a recollection of my thoughts after my end-of-summer trip/adventure in California. It is an attempt to organize my thoughts during the flight from San Francisco to London (and eventually all the way home). The trip itself is exhaustively described in this diary.