Apologies

I've noticed something about having summers off: I have terrible time sense. As it turns out, if I don't have a regular schedule imposed on me, I have tendency to forget what day it is and somehow I completely lost track of Tuesday. I rather suspect that Tuesday pulled a fast one and is off larking about with Saturday and Sunday. That's what comes of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday always getting the revelries. Even Monday gets the occasional bar-b-que. It was only a matter of time before one of the mid-week days to scarper off in a fit of resentment.

Nevertheless, I shall take responsibility for the wayward weekday and admit that I was ill-prepared for my Wednesday article which I am now writing nearly 15 hours late. I'm so sorry. Tuesday is also very sorry, I'm sure.

Now that that's settled, time is an interesting thing. We perceive the passage of time as an observable phenomenon only because something very predictable happens at set intervals. i.e. the passage of a full day is one period of light caused by the sun rising and one period of darkness caused by the sun setting. We further divide this thing we call a day into two units to match these observable intervals: day and night respectively. Moving into larger intervals we have seasons and years. All these things are observable phenomenons which is all well and good. Even I would be hard pressed to entirely miss the passage of summer.

It makes sense to have these divisions because we can observe them and are, to some degree, affected by them. What I don't get is some of the more arbitrary ones. For example, why 24 hours in a day? It's almost counter-intuitive. Humans tend to organize things naturally in sets of 10. So why not 20 hours in a day or even 30? I'm sure there is a historical reason, but that doesn't stop it from being arbitrary. The number of days in a year is dictated by the cosmos, inconveniently, at approximately 365.25 days in the year. Even assuming that accounting for that quarter of a day is always going to be an issue, why would we divide weeks into units of 7 days which doesn't divide evenly into 365? Why not weeks of 5 days? It's all so arbitrary.

I for one stand with Tuesday in protest of arbitrary time division. Those of you who wish to advocate in these sad strange days for rational marking of temporal progress, stand with me. Stand up and say no to the 24 hour day! Say no to the 7 day week! Stand with me! There will be a protest rally on the 5th Monday of July, 2011 at the 25th hour where I shall loudly and with much vigor rewrite the calendar into something more sensible. I hope to see you all there. Bring a clock alternative of your choice (I'm bringing my trusty adjustable hour glass.)