Based on a doctor's advice, I've taken the last three days off from teaching because of my worsening sleep problem. It's very unusual for me to take sick days from work. Even though I haven't been teaching, I went in a couple of times to do prep for my sub and have been doing some other work from home by e-mail and phone. I also have university assignments that I need to go back to marking. I'm counting the days until my overnight sleep study on March 31 at RUH's Sleep Disorders Centre to see if I have sleep apnea so I can get some treatment.

It's March 15, the Ides of March. The word "ides" comes from the earliest Roman calendar, said to have been created by Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome. The word "ides" is from the Latin "to divide." The Ides were meant to mark the full moon, but since the solar calendar months and lunar months are of different lengths, the ides lost its original meaning. On this day in 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was on his way to a Senate meeting in Rome. He met up with the soothsayer who had warned him days before to "Beware the Ides of March." Caesar pointed out that the Ides had come, and the soothsayer replied, "Yes, but they have not yet gone." Caesar breathed his last breath a short time later, stabbed to death by a group of conspirators after entering the Senate house.

Einstein's most famous equation ( E = mc2, which means that there is tremendous energy trapped inside all particles) was the theoretical basis for nuclear weapons. Years later, after the creation of the atom bomb, Einstein said, "If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith."