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roian's picture

I find it hilarious

that even though I haven't stayed in touch with Paul much since I graduated (in 1990), just *thinking* about him puts me in that uncomfortable, unsettled, productive state of not being sure about anything

I teach "that's cute" as the highest praise to pretty much everyone I work with, and I'm a card carrying systems neurobiologist, partly because of Paul's Neurobiology and Behavior course.

I've had many people important to me die, but with Paul I have the oddest feeling. In reminds me most strongly of the following:
I am always losing things. For years, I would have small notebooks full of addresses, recipes, notes, poems, and I would inevitably lose them and feel this horrible, jolting loss. Then I got a palm pilot, and used it for all those things, and I lost it. And instead of the horrible, jolting loss, mirabile!, I felt "that's OK, I have everything backed up at home". Somehow, that's how I feel now. Yes, you are important to me, Paul. And yes, you are gone. But it's OK, I have you all backed up at home.

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